


In Search For Lost Jerusalem

by TheJadePhoenix1



Category: Xenosaga
Genre: F/F, Multi, cheesy romance shit starts at chapter 7 ;3c, future KOS-MOS/Shion uzuki
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2018-08-18 05:32:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 45,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8150846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheJadePhoenix1/pseuds/TheJadePhoenix1
Summary: Shion, Allen, Jr, and the elsa crew set out to finish their mission in finding lost jerusalem. Unfortunately it looks like their luck of damn near everything going wrong is still keeping up. Hopefully they can pull through…





	1. Getting things going

**Author's Note:**

> *Jazz hands* Jade doesn’t know how to start a story, but here it is anyway 
> 
> this is kind of my take on a sequel to xenosaga 3 soooo ye if that sounds interesting to you please give it a read. it’s gonna start with just the people you see up in the summary, but we’ll be seeing the other characters soon I promise~
> 
> (also I rarely write, and don’t have too much practice so any constructive criticism would be much appreciated)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the way a lot of this chapter was worded pissed me off so I went through and edited it, I'll probably go check through the others at some point too

“Well, that sure turned out to be a bust,” everyone nodded in agreement with the captain’s statement, Jr was still complaining a bit under his breath, and Allen mumbled to himself thanking god that they got out safe. They had just barely escaped a planet they thought was Lost Jerusalem, unfortunately it wasn’t Lost Jerusalem, and even more unfortunately there was a lost race of people living there who weren’t too happy about outsiders suddenly showing up on their land.  
  
“Dammit, I was so sure it was the right place,” Jr punches the nearest wall in frustration.  
  
“No offence Jr,” Shion pipes in, “but what was it that made you so sure it was the right place anyways?”  
  
“I had a gut feeling,” Jr proclaims as he taps his chest, and then, as if on command, his stomach growls loudly. “Hehe, well actually now that I think about it that actually might just be my gut telling me it’s lunch time.” Jr laughs a bit more, along with Tony and Hammer, Allen on the other hand still looks like he's going to pass out and Shion just sighs and shakes her head in frustration.  
  
“Welp, now where to?” Matthews breaks up everyone’s little post-failure party, “we can’t just sit here in space forever.”  
  
“We sure can’t, first of all are we back on the existing star charts yet?” Shion gestures over to Hammer, immediately taking charge of the situation.  
  
“Oh, umm,” Hammer types in some commands on the his computer and opens up the chart they've been filling in as they go, he then goes through and compares it to all other star charts on the system, but unfortunately… “Uh, nope it doesn’t look like it, but uhh I mean we can’t be that far now. Right?”  
  
Shion sighs, “well I sure hope we’re not far, we can’t just keep wandering around aimlessly forever, we’ll run out of resources sooner or later.” Allen and Hammer quickly agree with her there, and then started to panic a bit about how much fuel, food, and water they've used up already. She also hears Tony grumpily tell them both to ‘man up’. Shion's not paying attention however, she simply looks out the ship’s window at the vastness of space, the infinite number of stars twinkling lightly around them.  
  
“Hey I got an idea! Give me that,” Jr snatches a half empty bottle of beer off Tony’s console and lays it down sideways in the middle of the deck.  
  
“Umm Jr what are you doing?” Allen watches as he grabs the bottle and then… spins it…  
  
Everyone watched as the bottle slows down more and more until it comes to a complete stop. That’s when Jr hops back up from the ground and yells “THAT WAY” pointing towards where the bottle had stopped.  
  
… Did… Did he really want to decide where they went based on that? “Uh Jr I don’t think we should leave that choice up to-”  
  
“Alright you’re the boss, Tony! Turn this ship around!” Matthews is quick to get his crew in order, and with a quick 'yes sir’ Tony sharply turns the ship right in the direction Jr wants them to go, nearly knocking over Allen. “Careful there, scrawny,” Matthews calls down to Allen, “oh and hey once you pick yourself up off the floor I think that crazy professor guy wanted you for something.”  
  
“What, again?” Allen asks the captain, frustrated that he has to go run errands for the professor yet again. He was constantly being called down to the professor’s lab lately, usually to help with Scott’s work, and it was getting on his nerves. Especially since they never even called him by his name, they called Shion by her name when they needed her help, but Allen was always 'assistant 2’. “B-but I have other things to do, and we just barely escaped that planet with our lives! Ch-Chief back me up here!”  
  
“Hmm, what?” Shion had been too busy staring out into space and hadn’t noticed a thing anyone said, “erm I’m sorry Allen I think I need to go take a nap, I’ll help you out with that later.” She then swiftly walks past all of them and back to the main part of the ship.  
  
“… Huh,” Jr is the first to break the silence, “hey is she okay? She seemed pretty out of it.” He only gets a few shrugs in response, which wasn’t too surprising. Unfortunately Shion was never very open about her feelings, but anyone could guess that it wasn’t nothing like she had tried to assure them.  


* * *

  
  
Jr had left the bridge in search of something to do while he waited, being too restless to sleep and too lazy to actually help anyone work on anything. He rounded the corner only to end up at the cafeteria yet again, and upon realizing he’d paced around the main part of the Elsa about 5 times now Jr sighed and fell to the ground, leaning against the wall for support.  
  
“What’s wrong Rubedo, does the sickening smell of grease not allure you?”  
  
Jr sighs again a the sound of Albedo’s voice echoing through his head, he wishes his brother would just talk like a normal person sometimes. “Naw, I didn’t come here for food.” Jr continues staring at the floor, mindlessly counting the number or stains on it. He feels Albedo’s presence right next to him, if he had a body he’d probably be sitting there as well.  
  
“Hmm I thought you would’ve starved yourself with how you’ve chased your own tail around this ship all day.”  
  
Jr glances over at Albedo, or at least where he would be, and thinks out loud, “well that’s an odd way of saying I’ve been running in circles around the ship.” Jr then hears Albedo’s laughter fill his head, I also wish he wouldn’t do that… “Well anyway,” he just decides to continue the conversation, “I’m not really hungry I just… Ugh, you know Albedo, I don’t think I ever really appreciated how big the Durandal was, or how many things there were to do… Or how fast UMN travel was…”  
  
“Aww I see, little Rubedo’s getting a bit stir crazy,” Albedo purrs right in Jr’s ear.  
  
“YIPE! Don’t do that Albedo!” Jr covers his ears, not that it would help at all, “sheesh dude, you're gonna give me a heart attack. And if I die then who are you going to bother all day, huh?” Albedo laughs once again before starting to ramble on about something else. Jr had to admit talking to Albedo was a nice distraction from how restless he felt, even if he could be a bit annoying at times.  
  
Even if he was annoying he was still his twin, he was still the only brother he had left. “… I’m glad your still here Albedo.”  
  
Albedo stops talking for a second after that, “heh, are you getting sentimental on me Rubedo? That’s not like you…” His voice was a lot more soft than it usually was, and he doesn't follow up with an laughing.  
  
“Yeah, I guess it’s not…”  


* * *

  
  
  
Shion ended up having really restless nap, she woke up a lot more tired than when she went to sleep. She was haunted all the time with nightmares that she couldn’t quite remember, mainly about Jin and Kevin. Horrifying reenactments of their last words, their deaths, and all the horrible things she’d said to either of them.  
  
I know they were just dreams, and that they’re not accurate at all, but…  
  
Shion suddenly feels a bit sick after recalling her nightmares, “ugh, I need to get my mind off this…” She decides that some food would probably help her, so after a quick shower she leaves the girls room and starts making her way to the cafeteria. Along the way she also happens to see Jr sitting nearby, seemingly talking to himself, but Shion knows it's probably Albedo he's talking to.  
  
“Hey Jr,” Jr snaps his head up a the sound of Shion’s voice, “what are you doing sitting on the floor?”  
  
“Oh, Shion, I’m not doing too much. Just complaining to Albedo about how bored I am.” Jr folds both his arms behind his head and leans back a bit more.  
  
“Well why don’t you play that one game again?”  
  
“Eeeehhhh, I would but I already beat it like twice now.”  
  
“Well hopefully we’ll find lost Jerusalem soon… In the meantime I was going to go make some curry, would you like to join me?” Shion holds her hand out to Jr to help him up.  
  
“Well I wasn’t really hungry, but I can snack anyway,” Jr goes ahead and grabs Shion’s hand. “Do you need any help cooking?”  
  
“Yes actually, that’d be very nice,” Shion pulls him up and the two of them head towards the kitchen, “I don’t usually have anyone to help me.”  
  
“Really? Not even MOMO?”  
  
“Well she tried to once, and no offence to her but I don’t think she knew what to do.”  
  
Their voices fade as they walk down the Halls of the Elsa.  


* * *

  
  
Tony and Hammer had decided to take their break following their noses to the cafeteria, and they were pleasantly surprised to find Shion in there, and where there was Shion there was food.  
  
“Ah looks like we came at the right time,” Tony says loudly, making himself known, “and it smells like you made your special cur- oh what is that?”  
  
Shion places down a few plates of… Curry? “I know it’s not as pretty as it usually is, but Jr helped with this batch and I think it’ll be just as good as always.”  
  
“Oh… Well I mean… How much, per say, did Jr make?” Hammer shifts around, looking between Shion and the food. He's suddenly answered, not with an actual answer, but Shion thumping him on the back of his head “OW!”  
  
“Be nice you two! Jr and I worked really hard on this, and we even made plenty extra for you lazy bums!” She crosses her arms and glared at the two of them.  
  
“What, do you guys not wanna eat my curry?” Jr exclaimed as he came in from the kitchen, “but I thought I did pretty good, well for my first time cooking at least.”  
  
“Of course they want to eat it,” Shion simply states as she makes her way to her seat, “and if they don’t they’re not getting any other food.” She says the second part very aggressively, causing Hammer and Tony to wince. She looks back after starting to eat to make sure they did grab themselves some curry, and was satisfied to see them both (begrudgingly) grab some of the curry.  
  
“Well Jr,” she decides to start a conversation when Jr sat down across from her, “your presentation could use a little work, but aside from that I’d say you did pretty good.”  
  
“Thank you Shion, you know I tried my hardest and I didn’t start anything on fire, so that’s a success in my book.” After Jr says that they hear the noise of the door opening, and turn around to see Allen coming in. “Oh, hey Allen! We made enough for you too if you’re hungry.”  
  
“Oh, uh thanks guys. It looks uhh… Interesting. Did you use a different recipe chief?” Allen grabs his food and sits down next to them.  
  
“Actually Jr did most the work this time,” Shion gestures over to Jr who's looking very proud of himself, “and don’t worry, I promise it tastes better than it looks.”  
  
“Mmm, yeah it’s not too bad Jr,” Allen starts talking with his mouth full, making Shion and Jr laugh a bit at how goofy he looks. “You guys know the professor always has me do the weirdest things, like he asks chief for regular things, like help with coding problems or going over robot designs. But anytime he calls for me it’s always for the strangest reasons.”  
  
“Like what?” Jr asks him between his bites.  
  
“Well just now, for example, he called me down to help, and when I got down there he told me, 'Assistant Scott needs help coming up with inspiration for his next bot design.’ So I asked him what he meant by that, and he just went and shoved me over to the middle of the room and I had to pose there the entire time while Scott just drew.” Allen crosses his arms looking a bit grumpy, and even more so after Shion and Jr both started laughing.  
  
“What kind of 'poses’ did he have you doing?” Shion asked him between laughing.  
  
“Well at first it kinda made sense because he just had me do the robot for a little while, but after a while Scott had me start… Flexing…” Shion and Jr started laughing even harder at that, “yeah I uh… Didn’t really get the point of that hehe…”  
  
“Albedo’s asking why you didn’t just tell him no and leave”  
  
“I wanted to, but the professor can be kinda scary when he yells…”  
  
“What do you mean? He’s just an old man, he’s not that scary,” Shion pokes around her plate before realizing she’d already finished her food off.  
  
“I don’t know how willing I am to take your word Shion, you’re not really scared of many people.” Jr glances out the corner of his eye to see Tony and Hammer, “oh hey, look who’s going for seconds! I knew it was good!”  
  
“Yeah the chief is pretty brave,” after Allen says that he thought that Shion would looked happy, or bashful, or something along those lines. But instead she looks a bit sad.  
  
“I… I wouldn’t really say that.” Shion felt her mind wander back to the nightmares she’d been tormented by earlier that day, she knew that she was overreacting a bit, but the thoughts still wore her down. She could practically feel Allen and Jr’s concerned gazes as she looked down at her empty plate, “after all I tried sacrificing you all to go back to be with Kevin because I was too afraid to face my past… And I also blamed Jin for everything because of that…”  
  
“Chief…”  
  
_Kos-Mos and Jin are the one’s that really deserve to be called brave, she thinks to herself._ She feels a bit of anger toward herself, especially when she starts to feel moisture by her eyes, dammit this is stupid, I shouldn’t be crying over this! “I’m sorry, I have to go now,” and without another word Shion sped out of the cafeteria, trying to hide her face, Allen quickly followed yelling for her.  
  
“Chief wait!!!”  
  
Jr just stands there bewildered, he couldn’t figure out what had set her off.  
  
“So…” Hammer speaks up, “do we get dibs on the rest of their food?”  
  
\---  
  
“Ch- Chief wait!” Allen runs after her, she had gotten so upset so suddenly he barely had any time to react. “Hey wait, chief, I’m just here to help you! I can’t stand seeing you upset like this! Chief!”  
  
“Please just stop Allen,” he nearly runs into Shion as she stops suddenly “I- I know you all want to help, but I don’t want help right now… I just… want to be alone…” She tries hard not to let her voice crack as she speaks, she doesn't want Allen to see her cry again.  
  
“Chief… Isolating yourself isn’t going to help, please let me help, I love you-”  
  
“SO!?” Ouch… That stung, “your feelings for me can’t do anything,” aaaaand that stung even more. “I- It doesn’t matter in the end, it can’t bring back everyone that’s gone. Not Jin, not Kevin, not Chaos, n- not even…” Shion can’t stop herself from crying anymore, “even Kos-mos…”  
  
“Chief… Please, you let me close before. Why not now?” Allen reaches out to grab her shoulder, but she quickly pulls away.  
  
“I- I know… I’m sorry… I… used you.”  
  
“Used me? HEY CHIEF WAIT!” Shion suddenly takes off running again, he almost goes to go run after her but feels someone tugging on his sleeve. “Wha- Jr? What are you doing? I gotta go catch the chief!”  
  
Jr just stands there looking Allen straight in the eye, it was actually a little intimidating, “I’m sorry to say this bud, but I don’t think anything you were saying was really helping her…” He looks off toward where Shion left, luckily the Elsa wasn’t too big of a ship so it wouldn’t take long to find her again “I think for now you should just give her some space.”  
  
Allen gapes at him, “wha- but Jr what good will leaving her alone do? Remember how upset she was before? Back when Kevin showed up?”  
  
“Yeah that’s true, but…” Jr trails off a bit as he works to collect his thoughts, “uh how should I put this? No offence but I don’t think she’s gonna listen to you right now… But don’t worry, I’m gonna try my hand at making her feel better next! After all I should know better how she feels right now…”  
  
It suddenly hits Allen that, while he didn’t show it, Jr was probably grieving just as much. Given what happened to Gaignun… “Oh yeah… Well I’ll let you take care of her then… Thanks Jr.”  
  
Jr nods then begins walking toward where Shion went, but almost immediately stops “oh yeah, by the way Allen, it’s not just you she’s done it to…”  
  
“Wha- What are you-”  
  
“Suddenly getting all clingy for a while then pushing you away.” Allen's surprised, h- how did he… He could communicate telepathically to his Gaignun, HE CAN’T READ MY MIND CAN HE!? “Don’t look so surprised, I only know because Tony mentioned earlier that she had been acting the same with him as well. Getting all touchy feely for a while, and then suddenly switching back to super distant, then back to normal. I guess it’s kind of her own way of grieving, either that or she’s just lonely…”  
  
And with that Jr leaves, his words still hanging in the air. _Lonely? The chief is lonely? I mean… I guess it makes sense after just losing Kevin, Kos mos, and her brother but… He didn’t feel like he could move, but at the same time Allen couldn’t seem to hold still. Was Shion really just using him? I… don’t know how I feel about that… I want to say I don’t mind but…_  


* * *

  
  
Shion had ran off to the storage area of the elsa, she sat curled up next to some boxes. She had her arms wrapped tightly around her legs and she was glaring at the wall across from her. A few tears still fell from her eyes, but she had pretty much already gotten over the worst of her break down. She now hears someone’s footsteps coming her way, but just stays in the same spot hoping that they won’t notice her.  
  
“Ah, there you are,” Shion sighs when she hears Jr speak up, that was just her luck.  
  
Jr doesn't let Shion’s mood upset him at all as he plops himself down right next to her, “this is a bit of a weird place to sulk don’t you- Why is there a hole in the wall?” Jr gestures over to a medium sized blaster hole in the wall across from them. “Did… You and the wall have a disagreement?”  
  
“Kos-Mos did that back before our final fight on Michtam actually,” she still sounds a little upset, but the small smile that forming on Shion’s face gives her emotions right away. “She told me she was upset and wanted to know if I knew how she could calm down,” Shion chuckles a bit as she recalls the situation, “I was just joking, but I told her to do something impulsive. She took me completely seriously and pulled out her blaster and well… You can see what she did.”  
  
Jr smiles at Shion, glad that she was looking a bit better. “So did shooting the wall help at all? I don’t know 'bout you but shooting things always makes me feel better.”  
  
Shion laughs then looks back to the hole, “nope, it didn’t help. After she shot the wall she said 'Shion, I fail to see how doing this will help my emotional state. And now there is a 55.555996% chance that the captain will discover the hole and then, he too, will be upset.’” Shion does her best impression of the android, making Jr laugh a bit, “I told her that the captain probably wouldn’t find it, seeing as he never cleans up down here, but she didn’t listen to me. Instead she glared at it for a little while, then said she’d fix it when we got back.” Shion smiles over at Jr after finishing her story, “this is actually a good place to sulk because no one ever comes down here, I can be sure of that seeing as the hole’s still there.”  
  
“So that’s where you keep disappearing to, you’re coming down here to the sulk hole!” Shion laughs at the nickname Jr gave the big hole in the wall, “ah I knew I was forgetting to check somewhere, me and the other’s were convinced you were hiding in the girl’s bathroom or somewhere else we couldn’t get. I can’t believe you were just here the whole time.”  
  
“You know, you probably would’ve found me sooner if you all weren’t so scared of chores.”  
  
Jr fake pouts at Shion’s sarcastic remark, “anyway, I just came looking for you to make sure you’re doing alright. You seemed pretty upset when you ran out of the cafeteria earlier…” He almost regrets bringing it back up when Shion gets the same depressed look back on her face, but he knew that hiding her feelings and pretending everything was okay wouldn’t help Shion in the long run. “It’s okay you know, I’m not going to judge you. I just hate seeing such a good friend so hurt, and if it’s something you’re comfortable talking about i’d be more than happy to listen.”  
  
“I… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to blow up like that earlier…” Shion sighs, “it was pretty silly wasn’t it? I have all this wonderful friends looking out for me, but I still can’t keep my emotions under control. Especially considering it was over something so stupid…”  
  
“Hey it’s okay, I don’t know what it was about but I’m sure it wasn’t that stupid!” Jr waves his arms to emphasize it, “and even if it was 'stupid’ I blow up over stupid things all the time.”  
  
“Yeah well… That’s just because Albedo's a pain in the ass, if he wasn’t purposefully messing with you…” Shion trails off.  
  
“Okay, but that’s not the poi- No I’m not telling her that, Albedo… Why? Because she’s got a point. Look we’ll talk about this later.” Jr turns back to Shion after he finishes arguing with his brother, “look, the point I’m trying to make is that it’s okay to break under pressure every now and then. I know how you feel, really, I’ve lost a lot of people that are important to me as well, including my brother.”  
  
Shion feels Jr rest his hand on her shoulder “I… Alright… It’s not really all that important though, I just had a bad dream and something Allen said just reminded me of it…” She half expected Jr to laugh at her, but he just listens silently to her, “nothing particularly bad has even happened lately, it’s just what happened back on Michtam has still been bothering me.”  
  
“Ah see, that’s not stupid at all. You can’t be expected to just get over what happened so soon, we all know that.” Shion smiles again at Jr, glad that he was being so supportive, “anyway, why don’t you tell me more about this dream you had.  



	2. Why can't anything ever go right

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one’s got a lot of fighting in it, and I’m not exactly too sure how to write fights so… hopefully this turned out okay

Matthews, who was sitting in his usual spot at the helm of the ship, adjusts his cap and looks down at a poster he's holding of the Seraphim Sisters. He knew without even looking at the calendar that it would been time for their show soon.  _ Someday my angels… _ A single tear rolls dramatically down his face,  _ someday I’ll see your show again… _ _   
_   
He looks out towards the stars to take his mind off his disappointment, he can hear Tony complaining about ‘the little master’s curry being good but not agreeing with his stomach’ or something like that in the background. It was just then that Matthews realized something important.   
_   
_ __ I don’t know where the fuck we are…   
  
“Hey, Hammer!” Captain Matthews leans forward to see that the navigator has fallen asleep at his station. “HAMMER GET UP!!!” Matthews lowers his chair and kicks Hammer on the back of the head, causing him to yell out in pain. “Stop sleeping on the job and check where we are!”   
  
“You could have just asked nicely…” Hammer whines before pulling up a few different star charts on his console, “let’s see here… I can’t see any matching landmarks on these charts… Hey Tony will you check-” Hammer is suddenly interrupted by a popup on his screen informing him that there’s an incoming transmission, “uh, captain…”   
  
“Yeah, go ahead and answer it real quick. But if it’s that professor again tell him he can find scrawny himself.”   
  
“No, it can’t be the professor. This transmission’s coming from outside the ship, just give me a second, I’ll pull it up.” Hammer types in a few commands, and then a large holographic screen appears in the middle of the deck. The figure on the screen appears to be in a dimly lit room, it was hard to make out any exact features on their face, however it's still bright enough to see them if even just a bit.   
  
From what they can see of them though, the figure has a serious demeanor and conveys little emotion with their words. “Attention unknown spacecraft, you’ve entered restricted space. Please turn back now.”   
  
“Restricted space?” Matthews asks the figure, “we ain’t even on any existing star charts as far as we can tell, how can somewhere that ain’t even mapped out yet be restricted?” He unintentionally lets himself get a bit angry when talking to them.   
  
The figure scowls a bit before continuing, “if you’re outsiders then that just makes it even worse, I already told you this space is restricted. We founded this place, and we’re not about to let any random ship come and go as they please.”   
  
“WELL IF YOU WANT US TO LEAVE SO BADLY, THEN GIVE US DIRECTIONS OR, HELL, MAYBE A MAP!” Matthews yells at the figure.   
  
Hammer and Tony wince seeing Matthews pissed off the figure on the screen, “I CAN’T JUST GIVE YOU A MAP, YOU’LL KNOW EXACTLY WHERE EVERYTHING IN OUR EMPIRE IS!”   
  
“DON’T BE RIDICULOUS, HOW THE HELL CAN WE LEAVE IF WE DON’T KNOW WHERE WE’RE GOING?”   
  
“WHAT’S ALL THIS YELLING ABOUT!?” Everyone turns around to see Shion stomp her way into the room. Her hair looked a bit messy, and judging by her outfit of a simple t-shirt and some fuzzy pants it looked like she had previously been sleeping. Both Allen and Jr follow her in, they also appeared a bit tired and messy. Allen still looks half asleep, and Jr is practically asleep.   
  
“Hey don’t look at me it ain’t my fault,” Matthews angrily points toward the screen in the middle of the deck, “IT’S THEIR FAULT FOR EXPECTING US TO JUST WANDER AROUND LOST FOREVER!”   
  
“YOU HONESTLY THINK I’M JUST GOING TO LET YOU COME AND GO AS YOU PLEASE THROUGH OUR EMPI-” The figure is interrupted by someone off screen switching on the light, their expression has changed from rage to bewilderment. The person on the screen also seems a lot less intimidating, they appeared to have long blonde hair that's pulled back into a ponytail, a pair of glasses that the left frame of which appeared to be cracked, and a black shirt with a cartoon cat on it that appeared to be a size or two too big.   
  
Even the room they were in didn’t appear that threatening, it was surprisingly low tech, and there appeared to be an old telephone switchboard. There were also a lot of exposed wires and many of the flat surfaces were covered with dirty dishes, papers, and garbage. “Evelyn! Keep it down in here, there’s a conference going on upstairs you know!” Someone off screen shouts at 'Evelyn’ causing them to scowl. “And stop turning this light off, we all know you only do it so you can sleep on the job!”   
  
Evelyn turns back to the Elsa crew, most of which had started laughing at them. “Oh I don’t have time for this,” they turn around and mess with the switchboard, once they get it all right they yell into a headset. “HEY, WE GOT SOME INTRUDERS AT SECTION 4, COORDINATES 52, 12, 36! IT’S A SMALL CARGO SHIP, GO TAKE CARE OF THEM!”   
  
That sure gets everyone’s attention, after the connection's cut Matthew started barking orders at everyone to get ready to fight. Tony and Hammer quickly got into position at their consoles, Shion and Allen rushed out to go finish getting dressed, and Jr follows slowly behind them, too tired for all this shit.   
  


* * *

  
  
Tony's fast to fly the Elsa back where they came from, hoping that they’ll be able to lose their pursuers before they're able to be spotted. His eyes dart back and forth between the radar and the front window. As much as he hopes that they won’t be able to detect them out so far he still has a bad feeling about the whole situation…  
  
Suddenly, just as he glances back at the radar, his bad feeling is confirmed.  
  
“Captain, they’ve found us! And they’re gaining fast!”  
  
Hammer was right, as much as he tries Tony just can’t seem out outmaneuver the smaller more agile enemy ships. Luckily though, the others had finished readying themselves and now all had their weapons. Tony hopes however that they could get out without the ship being breached.  
  
He slows the ship a bit and takes fire at two ships that had tried to get close to the Elsa’s port side.  
  
Before he has any time to celebrate there's a rumbling. “C- Captain we’ve been shot, there’s some damage to the Elsa on the Starboard side.” _Damn, I was paying too close attention to those other ships,_ Tony decides to quickly handle the other’s before they could further damage the Elsa. Veering sharply to the right he rams the Elsa right into the enemy ships, the small gunships weren’t designed for an impact like that and are all either destroyed or too heavily damaged to keep moving.  
  
“Haha! Wooo, did you guys see that?” Tony takes a minute to celebrate his victory, even the last few ships seem to be falling behind now.  
  
“Did we lose them?” Shion leans over to see the radar.  
  
“Of course we did. What, are you doubting my helmsman skills?”  
  
“No I just have a bad feeling about this…”  
  
Hammer's busy looking over the damage done to the Elsa when something pops back up on the radar, something extremely fast. “T- TONY YOU GOTTA MOVE THE SHI-”  
  
Hammer’s words are lost in the chaos.  
  
Everyone's flung back as the ship suddenly speeds up, the enemy ship had latched itself onto the Elsa and was now dragging them along with it. Tony quickly gets back up and tries to break the Elsa free of the other ship, but it's no use, they’re thoroughly stuck.  
  
“Dammit…” Matthews lowers his chair back down, “these guys are actually pretty tough… Hammer, turn on the external camera feed! Let’s see what we’re up against.” Hammer gives him a quick 'yes captain’ before pulling up the footage.  
  
The ship is around the same size as the Elsa, maybe a few meters smaller, it's a long thin black ship with a few claw-like appendages that it’s using to keep the Elsa ensnared. Something that really stands out about the ship, however, is that it looks frighteningly similar to an Ormus ship. From the corner of the screen a few of the appendages can be seen adjusting themselves, but it’s impossible to see exactly what they’re doing.  
  
Soon after an alarm starts to go off. Hammer and Tony rush to see what was wrong, “captain, they’re trying to pry the cargo bay open!” On the main monitor a few smaller ships could be seen leaving the large ship, it looks like they’re trying to get inside.  
  
“Is there any way we can shake 'em?” Matthews gestures over to Tony.  
  
“I’ve tried everything I can, but our engines just aren’t strong enough.”  
  
“The cargo bay’s open!” Hammer shouts over the alarm, “we’re being boarded!”  
  
“And you’re getting a call!” Jr suddenly points over to Hammer’s screen, there was a notification that he was being called from someone on the lower part of the ship. Hammer cautiously answers it, and nearly jumps out of his seat when the Professor’s voice suddenly shouts through.  
  
“What’s going on up there!? How can I be expected to work when you’re throwing this ship all over-”  
  
“HAMMER, HANG THAT UP! We don’t got time for that right now!”  
  
“Are they on the ship yet?” Shion asks, completely dismissing all the nonsense going on around her.  
  
“Umm y- yeah it looks like a few enemy ships are in the cargo bay, and there’s some soldiers getting out-”  
  
“RIGHT, WE’LL GO TAKE CARE OF THEM” Jr grabs Allen with one hand, and his gun with the other, then darts out the door. Completely ignoring Shion yelling after him about how they should come up with a plan first.  
  
Shion sighs, hearing only distant gunfire over the blaring alarm. “So, do you think chasing them all out will help?” She turns back to the captain, “I mean it will definitely help to not be shot at, but do you think that’ll be enough for us to get away?”  
  
“Probably not,” Tony answers her while looking through to see which of their weapons were still online, “Until we get that big ship up top off we can’t really go anywhere… Oh hey, I forgot we had this ion cannon… I might be able to shoot 'em off, eventually, but you guys will need to buy us some time.” He had already started to fire off a few weapons while talking to her. Shion, in turn, only gave Tony a small nod before running off after the others.  
  


* * *

  
  
Shion Jogs down to the lower floors of the ship, simply following the sound of gunfire to where she presumes her friends are. Up ahead she sees Allen struggling to hold off a realian soldier, unsheathing the blade from her M.W.S. Shion runs ahead and slashes at the soldier.   
  
The realian falls back after that slash, bleeding heavily from the cut she left.   
  
“Chief! There you are!”   
  
A few more soldiers stray too close so Shion and Allen quickly takes fire at them. Shion feels one of the enemy’s bullets graze her leg, shooting pain up her side.   
  
“Argh! Where’s Jr at?” She shifts her weight to her right side to try and stop the pain before firing once again at some more realians. It seemed as thought those were the only soldiers their attackers had sent.   
  
Before Allen could answer her, a rain of bullets strikes the realians from behind.   
  
“I’m right here!” Jr catches all the other realian’s attention when he shouts that.   
  
How did he get over there? Shion doesn't let it bother her for too long though, she takes Jr’s distraction as an opportunity to shoot a few of the other soldiers while they're facing away.   
  
The realians are caught off guard, and there were a few moments of chaos as they turn to and fro trying to decide whether they should aim at Jr or Shion and Allen. It really helps their odds that they have the enemy surrounded, even if they were still horribly outnumbered.   
  
After a little while of fighting the ship suddenly turns sharply, causing Shion, Allen, Jr, and all the realians to fall over. Afterwards Hammer’s voice could be heard over the intercom, “um hey… Not to cause a panic or anything, but it looks like the big ship up top is trying to pull us back to its base.” The ship shakes for a few more seconds before Shion is able to pull herself off the ground.   
  
“Allen, Jr, give me some cover for a second!” She runs over to the nearest comm device and calls the bridge, and in just a few seconds they answer.   
  
“Hey there Shion, how’s it going down th-”   
  
“WHY AREN’T YOU SHOOTING AT THAT SHIP!?”   
  
Hammer winces at her tone, and off screen Tony could be heard, “that’s what I want to know!”   
  
“We can’t just shoot at it while it’s still attached to the Elsa, we’ll be damaged as well.”   
  
“IF YOU DON’T SHOOT IT THEY’RE GOING TO TAKE US PRISONER!”   
  
“W- Well yeah, but… Ahh!” The ship shakes again for a second, “Tony, what are you doing!? You can’t shoot a ship that’s literally on top of us!”   
  
“Hey don’t worry about it, we’ll deal with the damage later. Anyway a ship like that can’t be too sturdy, we’ll outlast it no problem.”   
  
“CHIEF, LOOK OUT!”   
  
Shion turns and tried to avoid her attacker, but unfortunately the realian's a bit faster and she's struck in the head with the broad side of their gun. She falls to the floor after that, only barely conscious. Her ears ring loudly, drowning out the sound of fighting and explosions around her. She thought she saw the realian who knocked her out get shot as well, but couldn’t be sure.   
  
Everything started to become a blur, as she reaches her hand up to where her head hurt she feels something wet. She so badly wants to just close her eyes again, to just fall back asleep here on the floor and pretend like nothing went wrong.   
  
_ Why can’t anything in my life be easy… _   
  


* * *

  
  
…  
  
Meanwhile out in an unknown part of space, near an old and forgotten planet. Something, or rather someone, floats aimlessly in the cold void. You would never be able to tell she once had so much life in her by looking at her now, there wasn’t even much of her left to see.  
  
She was partially illuminated by the nearest star, that light on her shimmers a bit when it comes into contact with the thin layers of ice that had formed on various parts of her skin. It gives the poor broken girl an illusion of beauty.  
  
Her face displays absolutely no emotion, but despite that her there was still a torrent of thoughts going through her mind…  
  


* * *

  
  
Kos-mos stands perfectly still, the light breeze makes the flower speckled field she’s in that much more peaceful and beautiful. Kos-mos, however, isn’t worried about the scenery and is looking straight ahead, right where Mary, Nephilim, and Able are standing. Mary and Nephilim both move their mouths at the same time, talking completely in sync.   
  
“Kos-mos… I’m so sorry that I must leave you here like this…” Mary and Nephilim, who are standing on either side of Able, both tighten their grip on Able’s hands “but I… We can no longer stay in this world. We must take U-DO and go now.”   
  
Nephilim shuffles for a moment before speaking on her own, “you should be proud you know, the ripples you created will most likely save this universe.”   
  
“And then Mary places her hand on Kos-mos’, YOUR, shoulder and assures you that 'there’s nothing to worry about. That you can choose your own life and no longer need me to exist’… Or at least, I think that’s how it went.” Kos-mos slowly blinks, it was more to clear her head than her actually needing to. The place that Mary, Nephilim, and Able had previously been is now occupied by only flowers being nudged slightly by the breeze. “What do you think, did I do good? I’ve been practicing you know~ I know you’ve been replaying this scene over and over again, I just had to wait until the right moment~” Chaos speaks in a sing song voice as he comes up and sits on the grass next to Kos-mos.   
  
Kos-mos doesn’t say anything for a while, she just listens to Chaos go on about how he’s been practicing imitations, singing, and… tap dancing? She speaks without even glancing at him “Chaos?”   
  
“Hmm,” he turns to look up at Kos-mos, who's still looking elsewhere, “what is it Kos-mos?”   
  
“Why is it that you decided to stay? Should you not have gone with Nephilim?”   
  
“Ah, so that’s it. Well I guess I technically could have gone,”  he reaches down to pick one of the flowers while putting together his thoughts, “but I feel like I’m still needed here for something. Besides wouldn’t you get lonely here by yourself?”   
  
“Well technically she’s not here by herself.”   
  
“Oh, T-elos how nice of you to finally join us.” Chaos smiled looking over to where T-elos suddenly appears, she's facing the other way with her arms crossed. “You usually keep to yourself so it’s nice to finally get to speak with you.”   
  
“Don’t get used to it, I’m only here because I have to be.” T-elos snaps at Chaos.   
  
Chaos just lightly chuckles at T-elos’ remark, “of course, it couldn’t have been because you were lonely or anything right?” She doesn’t respond to him at all, making him laugh just a bit more, “well in any case now that you're here maybe you can help me out. Kos-mos here seems to be upset, but she won’t tell me what’s wrong. You see she’s been-”   
  
“Yeah, yeah, replaying that same memory over again. I’ve been here the entire time too you know.” T-elos turns around to see that Chaos hadn’t even flinched at her aggressive remark, “anyway it’s not every day that you lose your entire purpose for existing in the first place.”   
  
Chaos stops smiling, “oh yeah, I see… With Mary and Gnosis being gone…”   
  
“Actually T-elos is only 38.2225% correct.”   
  
Chaos and T-elos are a little surprised at the sudden sound of Kos-mos’ voice. T-elos in particular is a bit bitter, mumbling how that was an unnecessarily specific percentage.   
  
“While it is true that the purpose for my creation no longer exists, I do not necessarily feel sad or lost. Perhaps that is partially because they stopped being my prime directive a while back.”   
  
She turns around to see the two of them staring at her, waiting for her to continue. Kos-mos breaths out long and deliberately before continuing, “the main cause of my distraught feelings… Is the fact that I still exist here…” She looks back to where Mary was once more, “T-elos… If the reason we existed was due to Mary, then how are we still here now? Are we even meant to be here?”   
  
Chaos looks concerned,  _ so that’s why Kos-mos… _ He looks over towards T-elos to see that she looked uncharacteristically down as well.   
  
She sighs, “I don’t know Kos-mos… Maybe it was a mistake…”


	3. A swift recovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ended up being cut pretty short and not much happens (I was having a rlly hard time writing it for some reason) so uh... sorry about that
> 
> the next one will come soon and be much longer than this, I promise

Shion couldn't quite remember where she was or what had happened, she couldn't see anything and all she could hear was the sound of her ears lightly ringing. It took her a minute to realize the reason she couldn't see was that her eyes were closed, and as much as she would have loved to just keep her eyes closed and drift back to sleep, she eventually did slowly open them up.  
  
After her eyes adjust she looks around and noticed that the room she's in is actually very familiar. Despite the blurriness of her vision without her contacts or glasses she quickly recognizes the layout as the girls room on the Elsa, and she appears to be back in her bed in said room.  
  
She adjusts herself so that she's sitting up, which isn't too easy due to the throbbing pain in her head. She lifts her hand to her head and finds that it had been wrapped up in bandages, and in the spot that hurts the most there is a rather large bump.  
  
"Oh miss Uzuki," a nearby service droid calls out, "you should lie down for a little longer. You took quite a hit to the head earlier."  
  
"I what? Oh wait now I remember..." Images of what had happened come back to her, the enemy ship that latched itself to the Elsa, the soldiers that had gotten in the ship, Allen and Jr fighting them off alongside her, getting knocked out... "Say, what even happened while I was unconscious? And while I'm at it how long was I out?"  
  
"Technically you were only out for about a minute, but you seemed to have a concussion and were very delirious so your friend took you up here to rest and be taken care of." The droid brings over a bottle of water to her while explaining, Shion gladly takes it and drinks a bit. She hadn't realized how thirsty she had been until then. "You might not remember but you were awake the whole walk here, you even managed to go take those... Things? Out of your eyes-"  
  
"You mean my contacts?"  
  
"Yes, those things. Anyway you fell back asleep while I was tending your injury after you took some painkillers." Shion frowns as the droid finishes explaining, she could vaguely remember these things but they felt more like a dream. She didn't like the feeling of not being able to remember clearly what happened, it made her feel like she wasn't in control of her own life. "We managed to lose our pursuers a little while back so I'd suggest you don't worry about anything other than resting and getting better. And, if you want, I can inform your friends that you're awake."  
  
"Yeah, if you could get them that'd be nice. Thank you." She decides to lie back down before the droid leaves, which seemed to make them happy, and grab her glasses and a small portable video game she had left sitting on the table beside her bed. It wasn't easy to play the game with her head hurting as much as it did, but it at least served as a distraction.  
After all it wasn't like there was much else she could do, she wouldn't be much help if she didn't get better, and she wouldn't get better if she didn't stay where she was and rest.  
  


* * *

  
  
"I wonder if the Chief's okay," Allen mopes as he lies his head on the kitchen counter, "she didn't look so good earlier... I wish I could have done something more to help... I should have stopped that soldier from hitting her in the first place..."  
  
Jr is listening to Allen from the other side of the counter, he's wearing a pink apron that was clearly too big for him and standing on a stool scraping a bunch of chopped vegetables into a large pot. "You know Allen, if you really want to help her maybe instead of whining you could help me with my 'get better Shion' soup!" Jr ends up accidentally dropping the cutting board into the pot as he gestured at it. He mutters a quiet 'shit' under his breath as he fishes it back out.  
  
"I would, Jr, but I don't really know how to cook and I'd rather stick to things I'm good at."  
  
"Well what are you good at?"  
  
"Whining."  
  
"Aw come on, you gotta be good at more stuff than that." Jr looks around the messy counter for something he misplaced, "and uh... Does one of those talents happen to be knowing where the salt is?"  
  
"Yeah, here." Allen says with a sigh, passing the salt shaker over to Jr. "Don't add too much pepper either, she doesn't really like pepper."  
  
"See you got other talents, like passing me things, and knowing weird specific things about Shion."  
  
"Well I can only know as much as she tells me... Er, I guess I could know more but that'd just be stalkerish and creepy..." Allen then watches Jr put a comically large roast chicken into his soup, he would have usually questioned that but after a while he figured it was quicker to just accept the weird shit that went on around him. Soon afterward the door could be heard opening and a robotic voice spoke up.  
  
"There you two are! Miss Uzuki has woken up, and you may go see her now if you like."  
  
"R- Really? Well is she okay? Is she- OOF!" Jr had gotten up while Allen was rambling and was now pushing him towards the door where the droid still stands.  
  
"Look if ya really want to know how she's doing just go see her for yourself, and don't tell her about the 'get better Shion' soup, that's gonna be a surprise!" Jr finally makes it to the door and shoves Allen out, "I'll be there in a few minutes, just wait for me."  
  
Allen wants to go back and protest to Jr, but he had already closed the door and Allen just ends up running into it face-first. The service droid is still nearby, shifting around on its one wheel uncomfortably. "So... Would you like to go see miss Uzuki now?" The droid watches Allen pull himself off the door and let out an exasperated sigh, it couldn't help but wonder if it made a miscalculation and said the wrong thing.  
  
"Yeah I'll go see her now, sorry Jr is just so frustrating sometimes. Making me go by myself, doesn't he know how uncomfortable I'm gonna feel? After all it was my fault anyway..." The droid doesn't follow, it just watches Allen slowly make his way to the girl's room. It's stunned, since the day it was made never had the droid seen someone who could complain that much.  
  


* * *

  
  
Shion had quickly given up trying to play any game that required strategy or skill, she was still too unwell to do nearly anything in them. She instead settled on a simple farming game she'd bought once on a whim, she still wasn't sure how a game about doing chores could be so fun and addicting. She was in the middle of making the small character on the screen give flowers to an npc when someone knocks on the door. "Come in!"   
  
Her voice is still a bit hoarse but it was loud enough for the person at the door to hear. She doesn't bother looking up from her game, but she can hear the door open and footsteps make their way towards her bed. "H- Hey chief are you um... feeling better at all?"    
  
"Yeah, I'm doing much better. My head still hurts a bit, but aside from that I'm okay." She finally pauses the game and looks up at Allen, "what about you and Jr? I don't think I ever got the chance to make sure neither of you got hurt."   
  
"Huh? Oh yeah I'm fine, Jr got his arm grazed but aside from that he's fine too." Shion smiles, she felt better knowing her friends hadn't suffered at all from her carelessness. She couldn't help but notice, however, that Allen looked pretty uncomfortable. He shifts around on his feet and grips his left arm tightly. His eyes seem to dart around the room, never staying focused on one thing too long.   
  
"Hey are you sure you're okay?" Allen seems to jump a bit at the sound of her voice, "you're acting a bit goofy."   
  
"G- Goofy? Me? Naw- I mean.... It's just..." Shion watches him stand there and stutter, not able to form a full sentence.   
  
"Is this about what I said the other day? After my little freak out?" Shion guesses, "I'm really sorry about that you know. I'm not gonna use you or Tony like that again, it was stupid and immature-"   
  
"No, that's not it! I- I mean... Aren't you mad?"   
  
"Mad?" Shion didn't quite get what Allen was freaking out about, "no I'm not mad. At least not at you, that Evelyn person on the other hand I'd gladly give a piece of my mind right now. Sending those realians out to kill us, who do they think they are anyway?"   
  
Allen gapes at her as she grumpily rambles on, "you mean you're not mad at me?"   
  
"No, of course not. Why would I even be-"   
  
"Hey, Shion!" Jr interrupts Shion when he comes in the room and makes his way over to her bed. He appeared to be holding something behind his back. "How are you feeling?"   
  
"Um, I'm feeling fine. What's that you got?"   
  
"Oh it's just my special 'get better Shion' sandwiches!" Jr held out a plate to Shion, it holds a few miniature sandwiches and a side of strawberries. Shion smiles at the sweet gesture and thanks Jr as she took the plate from him. Allen, on the other hand, just looked confused   
  
"What happened to the soup?"   
  
"There was a, uh, change in plans..."   
  
After Jr said that they could hear someone stomping their way to the room. Captain Matthews, upon opening the door, starts yelling at them. "HEY! WHICH ONE OF YOU MORONS STARTED A FIRE IN THE CAFETERIA!?"   
  
"HOW DO YOU START SOUP ON FIRE!?"   



	4. Questions and Secrets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, welp... I meant to finish this chapter a lot sooner than I did. Oh well

Shion knew she was still supposed to be resting, and that the others would throw a fit if they found out that she had snuck off to work, but she was getting too restless. After checking to make sure everyone was still asleep she got dressed and slipped into the elevator to the lower dock of the Elsa. She figured the computers in the Professor's lab would work the fastest and have the lowest chance of her getting caught.  
  
Once at the lab she starts up the first monitor she sees and starts typing in commands, opening up the files that hold all the security footage. She scrolls down until she finds the footage for the outside cameras and types in the date that they were attacked by the unknown adversary.  
  
 _If I can just get a close enough look at those ships, I might be able to find out something about them..._  
  
"Hey now, it's rude to use other people's stuff without their permission you know!" Shion nearly falls out of her chair when the professor suddenly comes out of seemingly nowhere and yells at her.  
  
"Gah, don't sneak up on me like that!" The professor huffs at her, she also notices that Scott is awake as well. He had just set a cup of coffee and a microwave meal at one of the other desks. "Anyway, I'm sorry to intrude but I really need to use this. I'll try not to take too long though."  
  
The professor grumbles a bit, "oh whatever, it's fine. I owe you for chasing those ruffians off earlier anyway, just think of it as me repaying my debt."  
  
"Thank you, and don't tell the other's that I'm down here. I'm technically supposed to be resting right now."  
  
"Alright, but only if from now on you warn me and assistant Scott before you decide to rough house around with the ship. I'd rather not be in the middle of such a delicate experiment next time."  
  
"Hey, that wasn't my fault you know," Shion notices Scott laugh a bit at her tone. "Hmm, what's so funny? Because I could go tell Tony to take us on a detour through an asteroid belt if you really want to get crazy." She jokingly says to Scott, earning her a few more chuckles before the Professor orders Scott to get back to work, Shion decides to get back to her own work as well.  
  
The large ship was difficult to get a clear image of, all the camera's on the Elsa couldn't capture a full image of it with it being so close to the Elsa itself, and any footage of it before it latched onto the ship was far too blurry to pick out any details. The footage of the small ships, however, was a lot clearer and easier to work with.  
  
It was while she's looking over the footage that she notices something odd, "hey Scott, come her and take a look at this."  
  
"Hmm?" Scott is in the middle of sipping his coffee when Shion calls for him, "what is it Shion?" He sets down his drink and walks over to see the monitor Shion was sitting at.  
  
"I'm not an aerospace engineer, but don't you think something looks odd about these ships? It's almost like some of the parts on them don't match," she points out a clearer image of one of the smaller ships from earlier.  
  
Scott leans in for a closer view, "hey, yeah." He points a finger at the wings of a ship, "it's a little hard to notice at first, but I do think these are from a different ship. They seem to fly fine still, so it's probably a part from a different ship of the same class. Oh it's just that one though, the others seem to match- Oh no wait there's another one with mismatching wings. And I think that one's jet type is wrong."  
  
Shion's face scrunches up in confusion, for a so called powerful empire their ships sure are a patchwork mess. But why would they even be like that in the first place?  
  
"That reminds me," the professor speaks up, "it was hard to get a full picture, but I did briefly look at that ship that grabbed the Elsa. It seemed to be a scavenger like ship, much like the crew here has been using this cargo ship for, but anyway my guess is that it was made to haul around broken or damaged ships." He takes a second to shoo Scott back to his work. "My point, however, is that while it would have a powerful engine it was certainly not meant to go THAT fast. So either someone there is very ambitious, or they have a poor understanding of engineering... Or both."  
  
"That's odd," Shion whispers to herself, "I would have thought at least someone there would have known what changes to make to the ship." While she wasn't too knowledged on the specifics of how space crafts were built, she at least knew that you couldn't just stick any faster engine into a ship without any changes and have it work correctly. Even the elsa had to have major remodeling done when the captain had faster jets and engines put into it.  
  
And there was still the fact that the large scavenger ship looked so similar to one of the Ormus ships. _There's just too many loose ends_ , Shion thinks to herself as she leans back on her chair, _this is gonna be harder than I thought._  
  
She considers asking Scott for a cup of coffee as well to help keep her going, but she doesn't want to bother him. _I doubt I'll be down here too long anyway._  
  


* * *

  
  
"So... Are you two just going to mope around all day?" Chaos looks between the two androids that are still sitting in the grass across from each other. The two of them had refused to look at each other the entire time, and any comfort that Chaos had tried to offer was met only with silence. Even T-elos didn't have any witty remarks to throw at him, _I suppose that's only natural considering what happened to them, but they won't ever be able to move on if they keep this up._  
  
Chaos sighs, as much as he wanted to keep helping them... "I have somewhere to be, I'll be back soon, but in the meantime I really think you two should try talking to each other. You have more in common than you know, and I think it might make you feel better," he gives one last smile to them before he fades away.  
  
Kos-mos had watched over her shoulder as he left, she looks to where he was a bit longer before turning toward T-elos. Kos-mos knew Chaos was right about talking to T-elos, but that was a lot easier said than done. Kos-mos had always preferred to be led by logic over emotion, but the logical choice was a lot harder to determine without her robotic body. The only part of Kos-mos and T-elos that existed here was their souls, the very thing that made Kos-mos herself. But truthfully Kos-mos wasn't too sure of who she really was.  
  
And then there was also the problem of T-elos, in that the two of them were almost polar opposites. T-elos ran a lot more on emotion than logic, there was no logical way to calculate who Mary's soul would choose to awaken in, yet T-elos would still shout about how she were the better choice as if it were simply a fact.  
  
Kos-mos finally decides the best choice would just be to just start up a conversation about something else, just so she would at least have a distraction from her thoughts. "T-elos..."  
  
"Look I don't want to talk you about 'the purpose of our existence' or whatever, nor will I ever!"  
  
"... I... I was only going to inform you that your hair looked nice today," Kos-mos stares at T-elos who looks both pissed and embarrassed, she gapes at Kos-mos for a minute trying to figure out what to say.  
  
"I- WELL- YOU- YOU LOOK BEAUTIFUL TOO KOS-MOS! WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THAT!?" T-elos screams at her in a way that probably would have been hurtful if she had said... Literally anything else.  
  
Kos-mos puts a hand over her chest "T-elos, of all the interactions we've had, that is the nicest thing you've said to me..."  
  
"Hell yeah it is!" T-elos keeps on yelling as if she just delivered the burn of the century. "... Hey Kos-mos, just uh... do me a favor and pretend this didn't happen."  
  
"Absolutely not, as soon as I am able to control my body again I am saving this very moment to my hard drive."  
  
"YOU BETTER NOT!" T-elos screeches.  
  
"Year 4769, March 2-" T-elos yells and tackles Kos-mos, trying desperately to cover her mouth. "At approximately 0900- hgjghgg," T-elos sticks her hand over, and partially in, Kos-mos' mouth. It takes a second before Kos-mos is able to pry her off, "T-elos, codename TP-XX called me, Kosmos Obey Strategical Multiple Operation Syste- hkkkkk- beautiful."  
  


* * *

  
  
The professor and Scott had left a while ago, Shion had assured them as they made their way out that she would get back to resting in a few minutes. But soon minutes turned into hours, and without the power of caffeine to keep her going she ends up falling asleep at the computer.  
  
Her arms are crossed on the table in front of her with her head laying on top of them. She's partially on top of the keyboard which is now typing an endless string of 'M's across the screen.  
  
Shion shifts very slightly in her sleep, a small smile is on her face, reflecting the pleasant dream she's having.  
  


* * *

  
  
"Hi there, you must be the new girl."   
  
"O- Oh, yes. It's nice to meet you, my name's Shion Uzuki."   
  
"Well Shion it's nice to have you here, your resume was very impressive and I'm sure you'll be a great help with this project."   
  
"Thank you, I'm very excited to be here myself. You know I've always wanted to work in a lab like this, well I wanted to work on realians, mind you, but the thought of making an android is just-"   
  
"Hahaha."   
  
"What? Are my ambitions that funny?"   
  
"No, no, I'm sorry. You're just the second most excited person I've seen at the thought of working on Kos-mos."   
  
"Second?"   
  
"Of course, you may seem like the most excited one here right now, but I do have to look in the mirror sometimes."   
  
  
  
_ I remember my first day at Vector so clearly... I was too nervous to talk to anyone at first, so you welcomed me to the first division on your own. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ After the Miltian conflict I had all but lost my trust in people, I figured I couldn't lose any more people close to me if I didn't have anyone to lose. But I was still afraid of being alone, I think you somehow noticed that when we met. You introduced me to everyone there, and everyone was so kind and silly I felt like belonged immediately. _ _   
_ _   
_ __ That time we spent together, the things you said to me, it couldn't have all been a lie.. could it...   


  
  
Shion's vision darkens briefly, and when the world comes back into view she suddenly wished it hadn't. It's another scene that she could always clearly picture in her mind, whether she wanted to or not.   
  
Shion is in the same vector lab as before, but it has a much different atmosphere to it. The lights had been shut off, and the only light source is the occasional flash of lightning. The Kos-mos archetype was standing in front of her coated head to toe in blood, Kevin's body hangs limp within her grip.   
  
_ No... Please, not this... Not now... _   
  
The android stares at her for a moment longer before dropping Kevin's body, time seemed to stop around her as Kevin hit the floor. The room around her literally disappeared, all that was left was Shion and Kevin. "K- Kevin..." Shion feels tears begin to form at the corners of her eyes, and although she knew it wouldn't change a thing, Shion slowly reaches out for Kevin.   
  
Shion's breath catches in her throat when something unexpected happened, Kevin gets up.   
  
He's covered in blood, and there is still a gaping hole where the archetype had struck him, but he is still standing there like nothing happened.   
  
"Shion... Please, come with me"   
  
"K-Kevin I thought you'd-"   
  
"Shion please..." Kevin holds his hand out to Shion.   
  
Shion, still crying, reaches out to grab his hand...   
  
"Shion wait!" That voice...   
  
"Kos-mos!"   
  
There she was, her blue hair was flowing in the wind and her bright red eyes seemed to glow due to the stark contrast they had to the almost monotone scenery around them. She’s just as beautiful as Shion remembered her.   
  
"Shion it is not time for you to go yet, please come back with me," Kos-mos holds out her arm to Shion.   
  
Shion looks between a blood stained Kevin and Kos-mos, who seems to be slightly transparent. "I- I can't-" Shion feels her tears start to flow even more "I can't choose between you two... Please don't make me choose!" Shion falls to her knees, full on sobbing now "I- I miss you both so much, I couldn't possibly leave either of you behind!"   
  
"Exactly Shion, now please take my hand and join me in this next life"   
  
"No Shion you mustn't. Take my hand and I shall return to this world to be with you"   
  
"Please stop..." How could she possibly choose? She had such fond memories for them both, she missed them both so much, she loved them both so much...   
  
"Shion please come be with me again"   
  
"Shion I shall protect you no matter what"   
  
_ please stop... _   
  
"Shion"   
  
_ please... _   
  
"SHION"   
  
...   
  
"SHION!!!"   
  


* * *

  
  
"HEY SHION, ANSWER DAMMIT!!!"   
  
"GAAAH!" Shion falls out of the chair she had been sleeping on, oh Matthews is gonna get it next time I see him. Shion pulls herself back up, her eyes feel a little itchy, she probably shouldn't have slept while wearing her contacts. She figures she can take them off after she answers Captain Matthews however, and uses the computer she was sitting at to pull up a direct communication with the bridge. "This had better be important Captain, you nearly gave me a heart attack you know!" She shouts at him, obviously grumpy and annoyed.   
  
"Oh believe me you're definitely gonna want to see this" Matthews has a smug grin on his face, and she can see Allen there as well.   
  
"Chief you're never gonna believe this! You gotta get up here, it's- YOWCH" Allen is cut off as Matthews smacks the back of his head   
  
"Ey don't ruin the surprise! If you wanna know you gotta come up and see for yourself Shion" Matthews turns back to the screen, that same grin on his face again. In the background Jr is also yelling something about how Shion should come up to the bridge and see the 'surprise'.   
  
"Oh alright," Shion sighs "I just need to run to my room really quick then I'll be right there." The others seem to be satisfied with that answer so she goes ahead and hangs up. She then slowly pushes herself out of the chair and stretches out. "Hmmmm I wonder what everyone's so excited about" Shion thinks out loud, yawning as she makes her way to the elevator.   
  
It's a short and uneventful walk back to her room, but as she stands in front of the mirror and takes out her contacts she does start to get more curious about the so called 'surprise'.  _ Well I'm not gonna find out by standing around here _ , Shion thinks to herself as she pushes her glasses on instead. Shion decides to take one last look at her reflection in the mirror, and boy is she a mess. The clips in her hair had all but fallen out, her eyes were red from staring at a screen so long, and the dark circles under her eyes weren't helping either...   
  
_ Oh well, it's not like I'm going to a fancy dinner or anything _ , she decides to just take the clips out of her hair all together before leaving,  _ and anyway they already all saw how much of a mess I am earlier so it's not really worth worrying about. _ __   
  
With that nonchalant thought she makes her way out of her room.   



	5. Reunited... sorta

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter’s a little bit short, but I wanted to upload something

Shion can hear everyone's voices as she approaches the bridge.  
  
"-Ironic that she landed in the same spot as when we first met."  
  
"Well pardon me if I don't find this situation very amusing."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Because she's missing her legs and one of her arms! What the hell is wrong with you!?"  
  
"You know Hammer, Tony's right, and if you wanna take this so lightly maybe I'll have you be the one to go out and grab her."  
  
"H- Hey wait captain!"  
  
"What's going on in here?" Shion asks breaking up the arguing between Hammer, Tony, and Matthews. "I don't see what the surprise is that you all wanted me to see," it looked like everyone was there, but aside from that she didn't see anything out of the ordinary.  
  
"W- Well chief you see we found...erm..." Allen kept stuttering almost as if he didn't want to say.  
  
"You should look for yourself" Matthews says from his seat.  
  
"What are you-" Shion stops in the middle of her sentence, she sees something... SOMEONE, stuck in the window behind Matthews. "I- It's you... Kos-mos..." Shion felt like crying... Maybe she was crying, Kos-mos looked atrocious. Her legs and right arm were completely torn off, much of her circuitry was showing, and she was covered in soot and dirt. But it was still her, it was still Kos-mos...  
  
"I know she ain't in the best shape, but I mean at least she's in one piece... Uh, mostly" Matthews comes over and put a hand on Shion's shoulder. "I figured you could do more with most of her than you could with none of her."  
  
"And although I can't tell until we scan her, based just on observation it looks like we can repair the damage done to her" the professor pipes in, assistant Scott excitedly nods next to him.  
  
 _Am I... Still dreaming?_  
  
"Hey chief you gonna say something?" Allen looks at her with a concerned expression on his face.  
  
"Eh she'll feel better once she sees her up close and fixed," Jr suggests, "hey Allen why don't you go out there and grab her for us."  
  
"Hey wait why do I gotta be the one to- Oh you know what nevermind," Allen is surprisingly fast to give up arguing, "it'll make the chief feel better anyway so sure. Umm hey captain where were the space suits again?"  
  


* * *

  
  
"Oh gosh, the artificial gravity really makes you realize how heavy she is," Allen gripes as he carries Kos-mos inside (although it was more like dragging).   
  
"Allen..." He looks up when he hears Shion's voice "I- can I please... See her?" Shion then holds out her arms and it takes Allen a second to figure out what she means.   
  
"oh! You mean you want to- Yeah okay," Allen holds Kos-mos up for Shion to take from him. She manages much better than Allen did, in fact it embarrasses Allen a bit, she makes it look like Kos-mos barely weighs anything at all.   
  
Shion holds Kos-mos up with one arm and her face with the other, taking a closer look at her Shion could see much of Kos-mos' artificial hair and skin had been singed and in some areas it had completely burned off "oh Kos-mos, you poor thing..."   
  
Allen just stands there awkwardly, feeling a bit like a third wheel."Umm chief?" Allen finally cuts in "do you maybe want to take her to the professor's lab now? You can't help her by just standing there," he hoped to make Shion feel a bit better, but she didn't seem to look any less upset.   
  
"Ah yes, we should get started huh," the professor pipes in, completely oblivious to the despair Shion’s feeling. "Aww the poor thing does appear to be in dire need of repair, lucky for you we're on the case. Isn't that right assistant Scott?"   
  
"Yep, yep, and it shouldn't take long with the four of us all working together," assistant Scott excitedly gestures to Allen and Shion "you, me, the professor, and assistant 2!"   
  
"HEY I HAVE A NAME YOU KNOW!"   
  
"Pffff hahaha," Allen suddenly jolts at the sound of Shoin... Laughing... It felt like she hadn't done that in forever, she had been so depressed lately he had almost forgotten how she sounded when happy. "Alright, you all have a point. Now we should get you somewhere I can work on you, Kos-mos."   
  
"Here let me help you carry her."   
  
Allen sighs, glad to see Shion back to normal again.  _ She is good at acting though... I sure hope she's sincere this time, _ he only hoped that if she wasn't sincere that she could be actually happy once Kos-mos was up and functioning again. He goes to take off the space suit but is interrupted by a banging sound.   
  
"Ah! Don't drop her!"   
  
"I- I'm sorry she's a lot heavier than I thought!"   
  
"Assistant Scott, be careful! Remember you need love and courage to build or fix any kind of robot. AND THERE IS NO LOVE IF YOU DROP IT!"   
  
"I'M SORRY PROFESSOR, I'VE FAILED YOU!"   
  
"Goodness you two are acting like fools, stop messing around and give me a hand!" Shion then starts making her way to the door.   
  
"H- hey chief wait for me!"   
  


* * *

  
  
"See that one there," a dark skinned hand reaches up and points at cloud that's slowly drifting across the sky, "that one kinda looks like Yeshua."  
  
"Actually, T-elos, it appears to be a cloud"  
  
"Dammit Kos-mos, you know that's not how this works!" T-elos reaches over and thumps Kos-mos lightly on the forehead, the two girls are laying side by side on the grassy field of their dreamscape. T-elos then looks back toward the sky, "alright, don't fuck up this time. See that cloud? Tell me, what does that one look like to you?"  
  
"It appears to be a cloud."  
  
"Come on Kos-mos! I'm actually making an attempt here," T-elos sighs, "this is not how things were supposed to play out. I should've become one with Mary, not lay here staring at clouds with my failed prototype."  
  
"What good would have even come from becoming one with Mary? Why is it that you were so fixated on that, T-elos?" Kos-mos turns towards T-elos and waits for an answer, she stars at her for quite a while but T-elos won't answer her at all. Kos-mos frowns, "I don't see why you refuse to tell me, but if you don't want to I suppose I can't force you to tell me." She turns to look back up to the sky, a cloud that looks like Jr's dog floats into view and Kos-mos weighs her options on whether she should mention it to T-elos or just keep fucking with her.  
  
"Well now that one looks like Yeshua if he were hunched over and really sad," T-elos turns her attention back to the cloud that she had pointed out earlier that had now begun to fold in on itself, "where even is Yeshua anyways? I wouldn't think someone like him would have many places to be."  
  
Kos-mos thinks about it for a moment, she had only talked to chaos occasionally, but according to Mary's memories he was important to both her and the universe itself. "He did mention that he felt like he was needed here for something, perhaps he found out what exactly that was."  
  
"Yeah, maybe..." T-elos stretches out but doesn't say anything else, and for a few minutes there's nothing but a slight breeze to go with the comfortable silence between them.  
  
"... I um"  
  
Kos-mos turns her head quickly in surprise when T-elos begins talking again.  
  
"I wasn't entirely sure why I needed to become one with Mary, to be completely honest. I just... Didn't have any other purpose. That's what I was told and trained to do." T-elos was trying her best to hide any emotion that tried to make it's way out as she spoke, the expression on her face was unreadable but it definitely wasn't anything positive.  
  
"T-elos..." Kos-mos felt like she should try and help T-elos somehow, but she didn't know how comfortable T-elos would be with her... _No, I can't simply lie here and stare at her the whole time_. As T-elos continues to stare at the sky with a pained expression Kos-mos shifts closer, and then slowly wraps her arms around the other girl. T-elos stiffens up a bit after being pulled into Kos-mos' embrace but also makes no move to push her away.  
  
T-elos doesn't even try to hug Kos-mos back, but Kos-mos still feels a good bit of comfort by hugging her, and with any luck T-elos felt the same way. While they hug Kos-mos can't help but think back to the last time she'd been hugged herself, as she closes her eyes she can picture the bittersweet expression on Shion's face perfectly. If she had kept track of time correctly that had almost been one whole year ago.  
  
Then something odd happens, a different image comes to Kos-mos' mind. It feels similar to the memory she had just been thinking of, but she doesn’t remember anything like this happening.  
  
She appears to be staring face to face with the red testament, Kevin Winnicot. His mouth moves like he’s saying something, but Kos-mos can't hear him at all. As the scene plays out she's overcome with a feeling she can't quite describe, it's like a strange mix of happiness, sadness, and... Fear?  
  
The scene suddenly ends there, Kos-mos' eyes shoot open as T-elos shoves Kos-mos off of her. Based on the bewildered expression on her face Kos-mos guesses she had experienced something similar to her.  
  
"What... Was that?" Kos-mos can't answer her, neither of them know what exactly they had seen or felt then.  
  


* * *

  
  
It was a bit of a long walk down to the lab, and Scott would complain every 2 minutes that she was really cold from floating around in space for months at a time. Allen and the professor didn't even help carrying her at all, claiming to be their 'moral support'.   
  
But they did eventually get Kos-mos down to the lab, and into her pod (which Shion was now glad she thought to bring). Without taking even a moment to breath Shion swiftly goes to hook up all the equipment needed to scan and repair Kos-mos. Her and the professor start up the monitors surrounding Kos-mos' pod, and send Allen and Scott off to go check their supplies.   
  
"Luckily a lot of her internal damage seems to be minimal," Shion says to herself as she reads through the diagnostics, "a few of her components have frozen over, but if we're careful while thawing them they'll only need minor repairs." Shion sighs and scrolls past the status of Kos-mos' inner mechanisms and down to the bigger problem, "it just had to be her right arm didn't it? Not only are we going to need to repair it, but we'll have to rebuild a large portion of her weapons."   
  
The professor doesn't seem to be paying too much attention, and is just listing off the things they'd need to repair her legs. Shion still continues talking though, "R-cannon, R-blade, R-drill... Ugh, what else did we put in there?" She begins pacing around as she continues talking to herself, "those nanomachines aren't the easiest to replace either, and I'm going to make sure we have the right materials to synthesize her some new artificial skin. And we're going to have to clean her out entirely, she's been out here so long she's probably coated in space dust..."   
  
She reaches down and runs a finger over Kos-mos' skin, getting dust and ash all over her finger as she does. "Yep, that's definitely all going to need to be cleaned off... Oh, and I just remembered she stored away a few of her weapons using the UMN. Dammit, I'm going to have to change that now that it's gone." She looks through the data again checking which one's they still have "luckily I still have the blueprints for all these, I'll have to thank Miyuki for thinking ahead and sending them with me... Oh maybe instead of storing them as data, I can change the designs of her weapons to implement nanomachines similar to how her R weapons do. That way she can just store them away in different compartments-"   
  
Shion continues pacing around and rambling on to herself for a while before something occurs to her, "this is going to be a big project for the four of us... We have to repair so much of Kos-mos, and rebuild and redesign practically all her weapons. Are we even going to be able to handle all that?"   
  
"It's nothing to worry about Shion," the professor says, finally noticing her, "it will take some time, but we can repair her no problem."   
  
Suddenly Allen comes back into the room and exclaims "chief, we have a problem!"   
  
"ASSISTANT 2!" The professor shouts at Allen "YOUR TIMING IS HORRIBLE, GO BACK AND TRY AGAIN!"   
  
Shion ends up having to convince Allen to just come back and tell her what's wrong because he got all mopey and tried to actually do what the professor said and try and have 'better timing'. Allen does eventually stop whining though, "w-well me and Scott-" the professor looks like he's about to complain about Allen not calling him ASSISTANT Scott, but Shion glares at him before he can. "-Were looking through the supplies, and I uh... I don't think we have everything we need."   
  
Shion looks disappointed after hearing that "what exactly are we missing?"   
  
Assistant Scott walks in with two large boxes and Allen takes the opportunity to just show Shion what they're missing. "See we have most of the stuff we need, but we're short a few  supplies needed to make her electrical circuitry system."   
  
"Well that's a problem... How long do you suppose it would take to get a message to the dammerung?"   
  
"I'm not sure chief, last time it took almost 2 weeks for them to get the message and send one back..."   
  
"Don't be silly you two," the professor interrupts them, "We don't need to go looking for that ship, we can just get some from one of the planets nearby."   
  
"P- Professor we are literally in uncharted space," Shion resisted every urge to just outright tell him that his idea was completely stupid.   
  
"That doesn't mean no one else is here."   
  
"No that's actually exactly what it means." Suddenly she remembers the strange people that had attacked them a few days ago, "at least... I think so." She shakes off the thought, "anyway like I was saying Allen-"   
  
"HEY DON'T IGNORE ME!"   
  
"-Do you think we can get a transmission to them?"   
  
"W- Well Mary and Shelly should be back with the supplies we sent them to get soon. I mean I'd feel bad sending them back out again so soon but..."   
  
"Right, we'll wait for them then. If we're lucky maybe they'll have grabbed the supplies we need anyway." Shion looks through the list of necessary repairs once more, "in the meantime let's get to work on the frame for her arm and legs. We can worry about the weapons after we have all the basics done."   
  
Shion sees Scott make his way in with a few more boxes, so after she sends Allen and the professor off she goes to assign him some work. "Hey Scott!"   
  
"Oh, hi Shion. Is there something you need me to do?"   
  
"Yeah actually, you were the one who designed the armor for her last model right?"   
  
"Y- Yeah, I mean I'm no fashion designer but..."   
  
"Oh no, it was great! Actually if you're okay with it, I'd like you to design a new set for her so I can focus on the repairs." Scott nods in agreement and Shion smiles, "great, thank you Scott~"   
  
_ Welp,  _ She thinks,  _ time to get to work. _


	6. things are looking up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *poses* I'm sorry it's been forever since I updated this, take this chapter and cross your fingers to hope I don't fuck up this badly again

Down in the lower floor of the Elsa, way after the others had left to sleep, Shion still sits at a consol looking over the data on Kos-mos' new body. The outer framework for her new limbs was all but done, and they had even gotten started on what wiring and such they could make without the proper electrical supplies.  
  
The soft light of the screen lights up Shion's face and reflects slightly off her glasses, numbers, codes, and percentages flash by as she scrolls through a list of information.  
  
As the symbols continue to flash by they began to mean less and less to her. Her eyes blink more often and reopen slower and slower, and Shion does her best to focus on the strings of information, but fatigue begins to overtake her.  
  
Shion doesn't even notice that she has closed her eyes, as she'd already begun to daydream. She dreams back to a time very long ago, she's playing outside with her mother, back before she fell into a coma Shion and her mom loved to go to the park by their house. She would take the opportunity to show Shion all the beautiful flowers and plants that grew there.  
  
"Shion, my dear," she says soft and sweetly, "do you see these flowers here?"  
  
"Yeah, they're so pretty! And they're all so many different colors too!"  
  
Aoi laughs softly at her daughter's enthusiasm, "yes they are pretty aren't they? These flowers are actually really important, you know."  
  
"They are?"  
  
"Yew, they sure are! It's like just now when you pointed out how pretty these flowers are, flowers are so beautiful and they make people happy when they see them." Aoi's voice, while quiet, is full of enthusiasm. She was very passionate about botany and she loved sharing her passion with her family, her and Jin even had a lovely garden they took care of together before he left to join the military.  
  
Shion loved visiting the park with her mother, but after a while it became harder and harder for Aoi to be able to go outside with Shion. Her fainting spells became more frequent, she was constantly tired, her mind would wander constantly, and then one day she simply didn't wake up.  
  
Shion felt tears prick at her eyes as she remembers that day, her mother had been napping when Shion snuck in to ask her mom if she'd like to go to the park. But Aoi didn't answer, she didn't move, she didn't do anything, she simply laid there. Shion didn't know what to do, she panicked yelling and begging her mother to get up.  
  
 _Mom..._  
  
It was so sad and scary to see her mother like that, and even worse when Shion knew she was gone for good. And she remembered distinctly how scared she had been when Kevin had revealed to her that she had the same ailment as her mother. That one day she would simply go into comatose until she eventually died...  
  
Her life had been hard and relentless, yes, but she still hadn't wanted it to end yet. She didn't want to go yet...  
  
 _I can't go yet..._ _  
_ _  
_ _I have to wake up._ _  
_ _  
_ _I have to wake up._ _  
_ _  
_ _I have to-_ _  
_  


* * *

  
  
Shion awakes with a jolt, her vision was a bit blurred due to the tears in her eyes, but she can tell she's still in the lab on the Elsa right where she had fallen asleep. The monitor in front of her now displays a long string of 'j's from where her arm had been resting on the keyboard.  
  
With a just few sniffles Shion wipes her eyes and deletes the string of letters from Kos-mos' coding.  
  
 _I should probably go back to my room and sleep..._  
  
Slowly she gets up from her chair, but rather than walking to the door she wanders over to Kos-mos' dimly lit pod.  
  
 _I just want to see her once more before I go._  
  
The pod is already open from when they were working on repairs earlier so Shion can just walk right up to it. Kos-mos was still in a pretty sad state, but it was nice to see the progress that was being made on her repairs. With any luck she would be up and functioning again once they got to Lost Jerusalem.  
  
Shion smiles at her, gently moving a few strands of blue hair out of her face. "Goodnight Kos-mos, we'll see each other again real soon."  
  
"And I'm sure she'll be happy about that."  
  
Shion whips around to where the voice came from, it had caught her off guard partially because she didn't expect anyone else to be down her, but also partially because of the fact that it sounded distinctly like someone she knew. "C- Chaos!?"  
  
Sure enough Chaos was standing right there, the dim light reflected off him in an eerie and unnatural sort of way. But otherwise he looked just the same as always, with his usual outfit on and a big smile on his face.  
  
"It's good to see you Shion, how have you been doing these past few months?"  
  
She couldn't believe her eyes, they had left Chaos back on Michtam and now he was just suddenly here. And after magically appearing in front of her after, supposedly, dying and being gone for months he's just... Making small talk... "Chaos, how are- How did- Where have- How are you here right now?"  
  
"Getting to places I need to be is just something I'm really good at. Don't you remember what I said, about everyone having something they excel at above everything else?" Chaos has a sad smile on his face as he speaks to her, "but I suppose... That was a long time ago now..."  
  
Shion doesn't say anything, she just stands there staring at her friend completely baffled. With all the thoughts and emotions that swirl around her head she simply ends up too confused to do much. "Chaos... I have so many questions... But I, uh... It's good to see you again too. It's been so long..."  
  
"I'm so glad to see you again too, but unfortunately I don't have too much time to talk. I just needed to tell you something important about our homeworld before you land there. You see while Nephilim and I were able to tame many of the gnosis, many of those wills still remain and now wander around Lost Jerusalem where we've managed to contain them." Chaos shakes his head lightly, "it certainly will be difficult to get around with them wandering about, I wish we could have done more."  
  
"Wait... Does that mean that... We've found it?"  
  
"Yes, in fact you should be receiving word about it right abooooout-"  
  
As if Chaos had planned the entire thing the intercom suddenly switches on, and Hammer's voice can be heard through it. "Crrrzchh, attention passengers, this is your captain speaking. I hope you're all cozy this fine evening, if you look to your right you'll see- OUCH!"  
  
A more distant and quiet voice of Matthews cuts Hammer off. "Ya moron, just get hurry up and get on with it. Stop wasting everyone's time trying to sound like some old timey pilot or whatever!"  
  
"Ugh, alright jeez. We've just arrived at a new planet, we're gonna go in for a closer look and maybe even find a place to land. Come up to the helm of the ship if you want to take a look."  
  
The intercom switches off with a 'click' and Chaos finishes his sentence, "-now."  
  
"We've finally- After all this time we've finally found it!" Shion can't help but get excited at this news, things were finally starting to look up for them. "Chaos, this is great-" Shion only took her eyes off Chaos for a second, but when she turns back he isn't there anymore. "Chaos? Where did you go?" She couldn't believe he'd just leave again like that, and so soon after he got back...  
  
"Don't worry Shion," Chaos' voice echoes from all around her, "I'll see you again soon. Look for me once you land on Lost Jerusalem."  
  
"Right, I'll see you soon Chaos." Chaos' words put Shion at ease, and now she can focus on the situation at hand. She gives Kos-mos one last look before deciding to make her way to the helm of the ship.  
  


* * *

  
  
Tony, Hammer, and the captain barely pay Shion any notice when she steps into the room. The lights had been dimmed slightly, Tony is sipping on an energy drink as he half heartedly navigates the ship into position to land on the planet, Hammer appears to have pre-recorded tv show playing on a large holographic monitor in front of him, and captain Matthews is half paying attention to whatever Hammer is watching but also half falling asleep.  
  
Shion knew the others couldn't have known that they had just found Lost Jerusalem, but she at least expected them to be just a bit more lively than this. She doesn't want to make too big of a fuss, however, so she just makes her way over to the copilot's seat and attempts to make conversation with the others.  
  
"So, I'm guessing it was a long day for you guys too." Hammer and Matthews both groan, confirming her statement.  
  
"Yeah, because this moron-" Matthews gestures towards Tony, "-suggested that we stay up ALL NIGHT just so we could reach this one planet."  
  
"Hey, you said yourself it wouldn't make sense to just wait out here in space when a planet was so close by." Tony retorts back as he gestured back at Matthews, nearly knocking his drink off the table in the process. "Besides it was you guys that suggested we stay the night there so we don't waste our oxygen reserves."  
  
"Yeah but at least I know when to call it quits, we've been up for hours now and at this point I would've rather just stayed back where we found our little android girl."  
  
"He does have a point ya know," Hammer says through a yawn. Tony doesn't even bother responding to them anymore and the two of them just go back to watching their show.  
  
"So have you been up this entire time too?" Tony turns back to talk with Shion some more rather than arguing with his crew mates.  
  
Shion nods, "I ended up dozing off for a little bit, but otherwise I've been up all night. We already finished the framework for Kos-mos' new limbs, but I wanted to stay up a bit longer than the others so I could start working on programming a new weapons system for her."  
  
"You guys work pretty fast, huh."  
  
"Well that's what happens when you have four brilliant robotics scientists on your ship."  
  
Hammer lets out a light chuckle, "I'm not sure 'brilliant' is the first word I'd use to describe Allen."  
  
"Hey be nice," Shion cuts in over Hammer and Tony's laughter, "Allen may be a bit of a complainer, but he's still really smart. After all you didn't get put in vector's 1st R&D division for nothing." She shakes her head disapprovingly at her two friends that are still chuckling.  
  
"Well we're going to break the atmosphere now so it might get a little bit bumpy."  
  
Shion nods and pushes her seat a bit closer to the console so she doesn't fall over. With most new ships things like turbulence had ceased to be a problem, but some of the smaller ones still ended up getting it when entering planet's atmospheres.  
  
"So..." Hammer turns down the volume of his show a bit so they can converse easily, "what are everyone's bets on this actually being lost jerusalem?"  
  
Shion smiles at Hammer's question, "oh I don't need to bet, because I KNOW that this is lost jerusalem."  
  
"Oh really? What makes you say that? Did your gut tell you a prophecy like the little master?"  
  
"Pffhahaha, no of course not, don't be silly. I was downstairs working on Kos-mos when I was told by an astral projection of Chaos that- okay now that I'm saying this out loud it sounds even more ridiculous." Shion continuously blushes more and more as she tries to recap what happened without sounding like her sleep deprivation had made her loopy. Failing miserably every single time.  
  
"So... Let me get this straight," Hammer cuts into Shion's rambles, "you've been working on Kos-mos for about, what? 13 hours now? And all of the sudden chaos' ghost shows up and tells you that this is lost jerusalem?"  
  
"I believe her."  
  
"Okay well it looks like Tony's been up a little too long as well."  
  
"Hey you can doubt me all you want, but let's be honest weirder things have happened."  
  
"Thanks Tony," Shion sighs, glad someone actually believes her. "It sounds crazy I know, but I really believe this is the place."  
  
Shion grips the console for a moment as the elsa hits some turbulence on it's last descent into the atmosphere. After a few moments of seeing nothing but clouds the planet's actual terrain comes into view. It's difficult to make out any specifics from how high up they are, but Shion imagines that the the tropical looking forest next to the beach they're making their way towards would be as pretty as she hoped.  
  
The sights as they made their descent certainly were beautiful, but Shion couldn't help but notice that there was something a bit odd about this planet. It was unsettlingly empty, as if it was completely void of life. Even though they hadn't found almost any large civilizations during their search, most of the planets they landed the elsa on at least had some animals. This planet, however, had no sign of any birds traveling the skies and even as the elsa slowed to land in a small empty field in the forest there wasn't a single animal scurrying away into hiding.  
  
The landing went as smoothly as it possibly could have but still Shion shifts uncomfortably in her seat, "hey um... Am I the only one that has a bit of a bad feeling about this?"  
  
"What? Weren't you excited to be here just 2 minutes ago?" Hammer looks toward Shion puzzled, "I swear you're all over the place sometimes you know that." Hammer continues rambling about everyone changing their mind constantly, or being tired, or some other shit no one else cared about.  
  
"So, Shion, what's the reason you're feeling so uneasy?" Tony's hesitant to turn off the elsa yet, "was it something Chaos said?"  
  
"He did mention that there were some leftover gnosis trapped here," she had gotten up to stand next to Tony all while watching closely out the front window, "but I don't imagine there'd be too much..."  
  
"Well in any case," Matthews slowly lowers his seat so he can get down, "we should probably be careful. Hey Tony since it was YOUR idea to stay up so late maybe you should be the one to watch the shi-"  
  
Matthews is cut off by the distant howl of a beast, presumably a gnosis, and soon afterwards the foliage around them starts to shake.  
  
Hammer leans toward Tony as he begins to panic, "hey y-you know what maybe I was overreacting about that whole 'changing your minds too often' thing. I-in fact I think I'd like to join in on that, what do you say we forget about 'saving air' and save our whole skins by leaving?"  
  
Tony slowly nods and reaches back for the controls but hesitates when something becomes visible from the foliage. A glowing pair of eyes, and the warped silhouette of a huge gnosis. Tony freezes in fear as the monster starts barreling towards them, without Kos-mos or Momo they had no way of fighting the gnosis.  
  
While Hammer and Matthews yell for Tony to move Shion jumps over and grabs the controls that Tony barely has a hold on. Everyone in the elsa is flung forward as Shion yanks the controls accelerating the ship backwards away from the gnosis. The ship shakes violently as it crashes through trees, brush, and other foliage.  
  
"YOU MORONS, THIS ISN'T HOW THIS SHIP IS MEANT TO BE FLOWN!" Matthews yells just loud enough to be heard over the smashing of trees and Hammer's screaming.  
  
Finally Tony gets a hold of himself and grips the controls tightly, pulling them up and out of the trees and flipping the ship around to face the right direction.  
  
"I-Is it still following us?" Hammer shakily pulls up the rear camera after Shion calls over to him, the display shows the gnosis that chased them earlier along with a few others that had joined in.  
  
"Dammit, we need to go faster!" The gnosis only seem to get closer and closer even with Tony accelerating the ship to it's top speed, and it seems like all hope is lost.  
  
But then something happens.  
  
As the elsa begins to reach the end of the planet's atmosphere the gnosis on the display halt to a stop, almost as if they had hit some kind of force field. With them being out of danger Tony is able to slow the ship and put it in a steady orbit while the others silently sit there trying to catch their breath.  
  
"Hey guys," Jr says as he groggily stumbles into the room, "I don't wanna tell you how to do your jobs, but can we maybe go one night where you don't wake me up like this?"  
  


* * *

 

  
  
"So this is the place huh?" Jr looks out the side window at the planet below them. Shion had technically already told him they were at lost jerusalem the other night, but he was too tired to listen so they put all planning off until the morning.  
  
"Yep, without a doubt." Shion sets down a tray of coffee cups at the table Jr and Allen are seated at, "unfortunately it doesn't look like we'll be able to actually get down there until we either fix Kos-mos, or go back and get Momo."  
  
Allen nods and takes a coffee, "right, if there are gnosis down there we'll need someone who can use the hilbert effect to deal with them."  
  
Jr sighs, "dammit, just when I was gonna get the chance to get off this ship for a while."  
  
"Oh yeah that's right you were getting pretty bored weren't you Jr? Aw I'm sorry, but with any luck we'll have the materials to finish Kos-mos soon."  
  
"Eh it's alright Shion, after all it's not your fault. You guys are working as fast as you can." Jr takes another sip of his drink (which was actually hot chocolate, not coffee)  as Shion takes the opportunity to go off on the specifics of fixing Kos-mos, a conversation that Allen is quick to jump in on. It made sense, those two always were very enthusiastic about their work, but Jr couldn't help but find it incredibly boring.  
  
After a while he'd finished off his drink, and with nothing else to do there and nothing to contribute to the conversation he quietly excuses himself.  
  
He ends up simply wandering around the Elsa, that's all he seems to do recently, wander and wish there was more for him. Jr couldn't stand staying still too long, he never could, and recently that had only gotten worse as the things he once enjoyed he now began to find more and more mundane. Eventually he stops and sits down in his room next to a game system he once loved playing, _I don't get it,_ he thinks, _why do I feel this way?_  
  
He wraps his arms around himself and falls backwards on his bed, he can hear Albedo saying something to him but he doesn't paying attention.  
  
 _I wish I knew why this is happening, I wish I could just go through my day without thinking about him..._ _  
_  
Through his own emotions he can feel that Albedo beginning to panic, and his brother's distress definitely wasn't helping his own. Albedo continues to try and speak with Jr, but he just brushes it off as the same nonsense as usual.  
  
He flips over and tries covering his ears with his pillow even though he knows it won't work, he still tries anyway, hoping it would help at least a bit. But there’s no such luck, and Albedo's voice continues echoing through his head. The words made no sense anymore, he was doing his best to ignore him, doing his best to shut out whatever it was that he was saying.  
  
 _Why should I listen, and why should I care? After everything you did to me, TO MY FRIENDS, how could I trust you again? I can't just... I can't just forget what happened..._ _  
_  
Jr raises his hands to his eyes, he doesn't even notice that Albedo has stopped talking. It barely matters anymore, he had stopped thinking about his twin all together.  
  
"Ah, I see now," Albedo's voice finally echoes in his head again. Jr tries his best to drown him out, he was probably trying to read Jr's emotions again, which unfortunately was a lot easier to do when Jr's distressed. "You're thinking about him again, aren't you Rubedo? About Nigredo?"  
  
"N- No, it's not even that. I just..." Jr sniffles and shudders, now diverting his attention from Albedo to focus on not crying. He hated crying, though an outsider wouldn't see much wrong with a little 12 year old crying Jr felt like he was too old to cry. Gaignun had always told him that was silly and that he could let his emotions show as much as he needed, his brother always did his best to make him feel comfortable.  
  
But Gaignun wasn't here right now, he was alone with Albedo, and he wasn't sure how he felt about the idea of crying in front of him or his friends on the Elsa.  
  
"Hey Rubedo, come on now, what are you doing? What reason do you have to sit here and mope?" Jr doesn't respond, still focusing on holding back his tears."You don't want those sisters to come back and see you a mess now do you?"  
  
"M- Mary an- and Shelley still probably w- won't be back for a while." He has to speak through a few strained sniffles and hiccups.  
  
"Oh really now? Because while you were busy having a fit, I could swear I heard that captain say that they're within range and about to board this ship."  
  
"What!? R- Really?" Jr quickly jumps up at that, "w- why didn't you say so, we gotta go see them!" Well that sure worked, Jr's suddenly full of spirit again as he wipes up his tears.  
  
"Well, crisis averted for now I suppose. Let's not take another trip down to pity town anytime soon okay Rubedo." Albedo's words along with one of his infamous laughs echo through Jr's head as he cheerily sprints out of his room and down to the cargo bay.  
  
"Oh, but just one more thing Rubedo."  
  
"Make your little reunion quick, once it's done I have a message you need to pass along to that Vector girl."  
  


* * *

  
  
Just as the announcement said as soon as Shion walks into the cargo bay she sees that Mary and Shelley are back, the small cargo ship they'd traveled on is filled to the brim with boxes of supplies. As she gets closer Shion also sees that Jr is already there as well, and is chatting away with his friends.  
  
She smiles at the scene and swiftly makes her way over to her friends, Mary looks up and waves to her once she noticed her. "Hey there Shion, how have you been lately?" She pats Jr on the back, nearly knocking him off the the box he's sitting on, "little master here was just telling us all about what we missed while we were gone"  
  
Jr pulls himself together after nearly falling, "yeah you two sure missed a lot, huh. It must've been pretty boring in that tiny cargo ship by yourselves."  
  
"Oh you don't even know the half of it little master, I was worried my legs were gonna fall asleep an' never wake back up."  
  
Shion frowns at Mary's words, "well I certainly hope you have the supplies we need to fix kos-mos then... I'd hate to have to send you two out again so soon after you got back."  
  
"It's funny that you mention that," Shelley places her hand on Shion's shoulder, as slowly and gently as ever, "you're little friend made sure that we got plenty of supplies back to you. Honestly I'd be surprised if we didn't have whatever it is you need." Shion blinks in surprise, _my friend? which one could she be talking about?_ She can't help but wonder.  
  
Mary ends up answering for her by bringing her a small messaging device from the ship, "she wanted me to give this to you as well, an' don't worry, I didn't peek." Shion gingerly takes the messaging device from her, looking down at it she doesn't even notice the others begin to show up and work on unpacking the crates and boxes from the small ship.  
  
"Oh, okay thanks. I um, guess I'll go give this a watch." She quickly waves goodbye to her friends and wanders over to a move abandoned spot in the cargo bay. The video message takes a small moment to load before starting up, but when it does it's horribly off center and unfocused.  
  
 **Oh come on, just work please...** **  
**  
The view shakes a bit as the person recording it tries desperately to get the camera to focus, their voice is just above a whisper but it's enough for Shion to recognize it.  
  
"Oh, that's..."  
  
Finally after fidgeting with it long enough the image on the screen is clear and (mostly) centered, and the person on the screen is now recognizable as Miyuki Itsumi. She backs up from the camera with a satisfied smile on her face, she's sitting on her bed wearing a very large t-shirt and some very soft looking pants.  
  
 **Hi Shion it's nice to see you again! Oh- Wait... I'm actually technically NOT seeing you at all...** **  
**  
Shion tries very hard not laugh at her friend as she trips over her words. The key word here being TRIES.  
  
 **Erm... It's nice to see me? No I can't decide that for you... Uh, nevermind, I'm getting sidetracked.** **  
**  
She reaches up to itch her face and shifts a bit on her bed before continuing. It’s odd really, while Miyuki sometimes had difficulty staying calm or professional during important business calls she almost never had this much difficulty just messaging Shion.  
  
 **I uh, just wanted to send you this video to let you know how much I've... You know, missed you. I don't think I've ever had to go so long without talking to you before. And um, not to sound weird or anything, but I did kinda stay up all night the other day thinking about you...**  
  
She quickly reaches over and grabs an energy drink from off screen and gestured to it.  
  
 **I'm already on my fifth one of these because of that, hehe, that probably wasn't a good idea huh?** **  
**  
There's a long pause as she leans over to put the drink back down.  
  
 **Umm, I had a lot of stuff to say thought out before I turned on the camera. I swear I did... I just can't... Remember... OH! Mary and Shelley just got here, and obviously I'm having them bring this back to you, but also I send them with some extra stuff for you. Because, even though you said you didn't need anymore, I just felt like you might need some more robotics supplies. Well that an I needed an excuse to send you the new expansion I made for the Miyuki Special.** **  
**  
Miyuki's demeanor does a complete 180 back to her usual peppy self while talking. She bounces and sways from side to side on her spot on the bed as she speaks.  
  
 **Anyway that was pretty much all I had to say, I think. Oh, and if you ever get the chance- I mean I know you're busy doing important work and all- but if you want, maybe you could come back and visit me again sometime.** **  
** **  
** **I guess I'll see you later then, bye Shion!** **  
**  
The video ends right as Miyuki leans forward to turn off the camera, the space once inhabited by the holographic screen is now occupied only by the empty air. Sometime while watching the video Shion had reached her hand up and rested it on her face above her now smiling mouth, a few tears of happiness pricked at the corners of her eyes.  
  
She then wipes the few tears out of her eyes and puts messaging device away in her pocket. _Thank you Miyuki, I'll be sure to repay you for this the next time we see each other,_ she thinks. Shion gets up and starts walking back towards where the others were to help them unpack, but before she even gets halfway there she notices something. Jr must have left Mary and Shelley because he was standing nearby and motioning Shion over.  
  
She jogs over to see what he wants, and can't help but notice he's got a very grim look on his face. "Jr, what is it? Is something wrong?"  
  
Jr sighs and runs a his hand through his hair before speaking, "uh, well it's not necessarily that something's WRONG, it's just... There's something that Albedo said that I have to tell you."  
  
Shion's frowns and eggs Jr on, "well then, don't just leave me here in the dark. What was it that he said?"  
  
"He... He mentioned something about Kos-mos," Jr hesitates when he sees the worried look on Shion's face. She does her best to assure him it's okay before he goes on. "So what he said was, 'while she certainly changed within this lifetime, there's still a good chance that it was Mary Magdalene's soul that was making her who she was. And now with the resurrection done and Mary's soul gone, there's a chance Kos-mos may not be the same when she wakes up...' I'm uh, not sure if he's right or not, but he wanted me to tell you that."  
  
A chill shoots up Shion's spine as she listens to Jr, and she unintentionally begins to panic. She tries to assure herself that it will be alright, that Albedo was just saying shit to freak her out. But deep down she knew he wasn't, and the idea that he might be right...  
  
"Shion, calm down, it'll be okay." Jr reaches up and puts his hand on her shoulder, something he had to stand on his tippy toes to do. "Listen, Albedo himself said he wasn't positive on this, I'm sure Kos-mos will be fine." He keeps his voice as soft and calming as he can while speaking, but even as Shion begins to calm down Albedo's words still hang around in the back of her mind.  
  


* * *

  
  
After their previous interaction T-elos and Kos-mos had gone back to sitting around and ignoring each other. T-elos especially was uncomfortable with what had happened after they hugged, Kos-mos imagined that she had seen something T-elos really didn't want her to see.  
  
The whole situation was so perplexing to her, she had rather quickly assumed that their embrace caused them to see into each other's memories, but she couldn't figure out WHY. They had physical contact before then and didn't share memories like that, so it was odd to her that time it was different. She glares at a spot of grass dotted with flowers as she tries to decipher what could have caused that to happen.  
  
"Don't hurt yourself over there sherlock." Kos-mos pricks up at the sound of T-elos' voice, it takes her by surprise considering T-elos hasn't said a thing for the past few hours. Or perhaps even longer, Kos-mos was admittedly losing track of time within this place. "Haven't you ever heard that saying that if you keep a look on your face too long it'll freeze that way? I mean it's not true, but..."  
  
 _This is odd_ , Kos-mos thinks to herself, _I wouldn't have taken T-elos as someone who would go out of her way to start a conversation._ _  
_  
In a sense though, she actually really appreciates it, after all there wasn't much she could talk about to start the conversation herself. Of course, now she has to actually hold up the conversation...  
  
"What do you suppose it was that caused that to happen then, T-elos?"  
  
T-elos looks off to the side as she ponders Kos-mos' question, "I'm not sure actually, I was given knowledge of all the spiritual powers of the testaments and Mary Magdalene, but I doubt Kevin or anyone else could've anticipated me ending up in a situation like this..."  
  
"I certainly could not have, I was not even aware that your consciousness was still intact after we merged together at first." Kos-mos would never admit it, but it was nice to be talking to someone again, the silence had begun to get suffocating. "I was surprised that mine and Mary's souls had even become separate."  
  
"It sure wasn't what was supposed to happen, or at least not what we had planned on happening... You certainly are something else."  
  
 _Well now that is quite the compliment coming from someone like T-elos,_ Kos-mos simply stares at T-elos as she thinks about what she said. A blush creeps it's way onto the other girl's face, Kos-mos tilts her head in confusion at this. _Why is she blushing now? I wouldn't think right now would be the time for that sort of reaction._  
  
Kos-mos decides to get up and go over to T-elos to try and figure out what's wrong. "T-elos is something the ma-" She's unable to finish because as she's talking the dream-like dimension that they're in begins to shift and suddenly a large hole opens up beneath Kos-mos' feet.  
  
T-elos rushes towards the hole and just barely catches her by the hand. Kos-mos holds onto T-elos tightly as well, not wanting to fall.  
  
"Oh shit... Okay... Just- Just hold on, okay, I'm going to pull you back up." T-elos starts to get up slowly, using her knees and free hand to push herself off the ground.  
  
Kos-mos looks up at her through the hole, she feels as though she should be scared, but she's not. T-elos appears to still be talking to her, but her voice begins to fade. Kos-mos suddenly starts hearing a different voice coming from the hole below her, it's very soft at first but then it begins to pick up on volume.  
  
"Ko....p...e............I.......wa.....up......"  
  
Kos-mos turns to face downward towards the voice, the pit is too deep to see the bottom and there appears to be no sign of the source of the voice. The disembodied voice only continues to get louder, until the words it says are finally coherent.  
  
"Kos-mos........ Please, Answer m......."  
  
Kos-mos feels a strange string of emotions and her grip on T-elos' hand starts to loosen. There was no logical evidence to prove it, especially without her actual robotic body, but that voice... Sounded exactly like Shion's.  
  
T-elos suddenly notices Kos-mos begin to slip, she stops trying to get up and tightens her grip on Kos-mos' hand as much as she can. She's holding on so tightly she's almost worried she'll shatter Kos-mos' wrist. Despite her efforts, however, Kos-mos still continues to slip and T-elos becomes more aware of her weight and the strain it's causing on her arm.  
  
"Kos-mos! What are you doing!? You have to hold on!"  
  
Kos-mos can't even hear T-elos anymore, all she can hear is the voice calling out to her. It begs her to come toward it, it cries out for help as if it's in trouble, it takes up all her senses-  
  
Suddenly the voice stops, Kos-mos is no longer entranced by it and she can hear T-elos yelling at her just as her grip on her slips away.  
  
  
  
  
  
...  
  
  
  
  
  
.........  
  
  
  
  
  
..................  
  
  
  
  
 _  
_ _Loading..._ _  
_ _  
_ _System rebooting..._ _  
_ _  
_ _Electrical Distribution: Normal_ _  
_ _  
_ _OS, Logical Drive, and Artificial Emotions: Online_ _  
_ _  
_ _Double Shot Sensory System: Online_ _  
_ _  
_ _R Weapons System: Online_ _  
_ _  
_ _X Buster: Online_ _  
_ _  
_ _Phase Transfer Cannon: Online_ _  
_ _  
_ _Tertiary Weapons System: Offline_ _  
_ _  
_ _Error: Unable to connect with any UMN servers_ _  
_ _  
_ _New files have been added in a separate OS folder_ _  
_ _  
_ _3 new weapons systems have been downloaded_ _  
_ _  
_ _Internal clock has been updated_ _  
_ _  
_ _Time since last reboot: 9 months, 16 days, 13 hours, 5 minutes, 42 seconds_ _  
_ _  
_ _System starting..._ _  
_  


* * *

  
  
Shion stands by Kos-mos' pod along with her friends, they're waiting for Kos-mos to start up once again. The past few days seemed to have just flown by for Shion, she was so focused on Kos-mos' repairs she had barely noticed anything else. Not that much else had happened, they had more or less just stayed in orbit of Lost Jerusalem, and besides sending word out to Juli and the others about it nothing else of interest had happened.   
  
The pressure in the room while they all wait for the android to reboot is suffocating. Shion herself holds her breath waiting for her, but even everyone around Shion was beginning to be affected by the unease radiating from her.   
  
A screen that displays the progress on Kos-mos' boot up sequence is counting down to when she can start up again, it's getting so very close to zero and yet it's still so far away. Shion feels like her heart has started beating in sync with the countdown, thumping every time the number goes down.   
  
"Chief..." Allen notices how uneasy she has become and gently places his hand on her shoulder in an attempt to calm her down.   
  
"Don't worry, I'll be fine Allen." Shion puts forth her best effort to shake off the unease, however, no matter how better she feels those negative thoughts still linger just a bit. It's been this way ever since Jr told her what Albedo said about Kos-mos a few days back.   
  
Shion is so busy worrying she almost doesn't even notice the activation timer reach zero, the pod hisses due to the change in air pressure as it begins to open. Shion already knew Kos-mos was in there, and had seen her many times while working on her repairs, but there was something so different about seeing her right now as the pod opens up fully.   
  
There's a pause before Kos-mos slowly moves her right arm up to the side of her pod and pulls herself up. For some reason she hasn't looked up at anyone yet, her view seems to be glued to a spot on her lap.   
  
"G- Good morning Kos-mos," Shion hadn't meant to stutter, but her voice had become too shaky not to.   
  
Kos-mos finally looks up toward Shion, though she doesn't respond to her. She very slowly and almost sluggishly pulls herself all the way out of her pod, her face doesn't display much of any emotion as she looks around the room, but she almost seems kind of confused.   
  
Shion's heart feels like it's begun beating 10 times faster as Kos-mos makes her way towards her, and the fact that Kos-mos still hasn't responded to her just worries her even more. She stares right into Kos-mos' crimson eyes and says nothing, waiting for the android girl to make the first move.   
  
Within a moment Kos-mos blinks and her expression shifts to something slightly more warm, "good morning Shion, it seems I have been away for quite some time. I apologize, I hope you have been alright without me."   
  
Shion smiles in relief, this was just the kind of response she'd come to expect from Kos-mos, and so that means... "It's alright Kos-mos, after all weren't you the one who said 'the time we'll spend apart will be an instant in the flow of universal time'?"   
  
"I suppose did say that." There was a small smile of amusement on her face at their almost awkward conversation.   
  
Shion can't help herself anymore, she swiftly moves forward and wraps her arms tightly around Kos-mos. The taller girl is more than eager to return the gesture.   
  
Allen, Jr, Scott, and all the others give the two a moment to hug before moving in to welcome Kos-mos back. It's a bit crowded, but all in all the entire situation was so comfortable, familiar even. Shion closes her eyes and just listens to the voices of her friends, it truly felt like nothing had changed between them.   
  
It was the most comforting experience Shion had since they left Michtam.   



	7. well now that's just sweet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's a bit short, but I just wanted to put it up now because I've hit a little bit of a roadblock in my writing and I figured I should upload something before I take another break to figure this next part out
> 
> also just a bit of a trigger warning, there is a good bit of alcohol drinking at the beginning of this chapter, if you're not comfortable with that for whatever reason please feel free to skip down to the first line break, you're not missing anything important

Shion stands next to the bar in the Elsa's restaurant, she sighs exasperated as she once again asks the captain to turn the music down just a little. The Elsa crew had decided to throw a sudden party to celebrate Kos-mos' return, although the term 'party' could really be only be used loosely to describe what was going on now.  
  
Tony and hammer had dug through the deepest uncleaned parts of their storage closet to find an old pack of balloons they had, Matthews found some old music albums to play way too loudly, Allen got completely wasted after only one drink, and Jr had eaten way more party snacks than she thought was humanly possible and was now trying to dance with Kos-mos. Shion looks back to the latter to see her still trying not to trip over the hyperactive redhead, if nothing else it was impressive how essentially one of the most powerful sentient weapons known to man was being tripped up by one little urtv.  
  
Shion didn't really have anything against this little party, but she wasn't too big on events like this anyway and she had wanted to get to talk to Kos-mos alone. Not wanting to ruin everyone's fun though, she turns back to the menu above the bar. She doesn't want to get too drunk, but there isn't really much else to do.  
  
"Say," she says to the bartender droid, "don't you have anything without much alcohol? I mean I understand this is a bar but your selection is a little uh..."  
  
"Oh, yes of course, I can make you something custom miss Uzuki. Not much of anyone orders anything with less than-"  
  
"Hey Adonis! Get some shots ready, I got a challenge to win!" Tony slams his hand down on the bar table as he speaks to the droid.  
  
"A challenge?" Shion asks him, "what are you talking about?"  
  
"I'm talking about a drinking contest, you may not know it Shion, but I'm the undefeated champ in the elsa's wake of drinking contests."  
  
Shion gives him a questioning look but decides to just go with it, "well okay then, but who are you even challenging?" Tony moves so that Shion can see who's standing next to him, and it's none other than... Kos-mos? "Kos-mos what are you doing?"  
  
"I am sorry Shion, but I can not back down from this challenge... Also the sound of my friends shouting my name over and over is surprisingly compelling." Shion notices that nearby Allen, Mary, Hammer, and Jr are all chanting Kos-mos' name.  
  
She looks back to Tony who now has a large platter of shots in front of him, he... Does know Kos-mos wasn't given a digestive system... Right?  
  
Shion doesn't say anything to him, though, and instead takes a seat where she can easily see the action. _Oh well, if nothing else this will at least be pretty funny,_ she thinks to herself with a smirk. She adds her own voice to those cheering for Kos-mos once she gets her drinks as well, "woo, you get him Kos-mos! Show him who's boss!"  
  
Kos-mos smiles gingerly at Shion, and she also notices her blush a little bit. Shion knew she gave Kos-mos the ability to do so, but she'd never seen her do it before now, it's a bit of an unnatural color compared to humans but it's still cute regardless.  
  
Tony, on the other hand, looks completely fired up. Hearing so many people chant for his competition only seemed to make him more competitive. He quietly psyches himself up while waiting for the contest to start. And Both him and Kos-mos glare down at their drinks as the bartender droid counts down.  
  
"3... 2... 1... DRINK!"  
  
As soon as they start everyone in the bar starts screaming and cheering the two of them on, well everyone except Shelley who's trying to drag Jr away from the bar. Matthews finally turns his music down, but only so he can scream and cheer for Tony who's actually not looking too hot.  
  
It only takes him a few shots to realize this was a pretty shitty idea, and Shion almost thinks he realized Kos-mos can't even get drunk and is gonna give up. But he doesn't, he sticks to it for as long as he can, which was to say until the medical droids literally have to drag him away so he doesn't drink too much and kill himself.  
  
A still wasted Allen grabs one of Kos-mos' arms and holds it high in the air "yeeeeeeah Kos-mo less all heree it for Kos!" The others soon join in, all grabbing one of Kos-mos' arms and cheering for her.  
  
Shion of course claps and cheers for Kos-mos as well, but she's also still dying laughing from her friends' goofy antics.  
  
The party continues like that for a few hours: Allen falls asleep at a table, Jr tries eating even more party snacks and makes himself sick, Matthews keeps playing every single recording of the Seraphim sisters' show, Hammer gets punched by Kos-mos after pissing her off, and Tony has to be forcibly removed again after he tries getting in drinking contest.... AGAIN  
  
And, while she's still a bit of a wallflower through the party, Shion ends up having a much better time than she anticipated.  
  


* * *

  
  
Kos-mos had quietly left the party as it started to calm down, it was fun and all but her friends were getting just a bit clingy and she needed some space.  
  
She gets lost in her own thoughts as she walks down the silent empty hallways of the ship, thinking back not to what's happened since she's been awake, but what happened before then. She stops next to the glass sliding doors of the elevator, she can clearly see her reflection in them. She stares deeply into the eyes of her reflection, _was all of that... All that I dreamed, all that I experienced while inactive... Was any of that real?_ _  
_  
She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, which is technically unnecessary with her body. _What's more I am still bothered with how things have turned out regarding Mary,_ she opens her eyes back up and stares at them once more, still crimson as always. _I am of course concerned about myself, but more so about Shion. I know back when I had Mary's soul that is just what she wanted, for me to feel, to be human. But is this still what she wan-_ __  
  
"Will you shut up already, you're going to drive me mad if you continue on like this."  
  
Kos-mos whips around at the sound of the voice, her scanners hadn't picked up on anyone nearby. In fact even as she looks around no one seems to be there.  
  
"What, did you forget about me already? You should know by now you can't get rid of me that easily."  
  
Wait, she recognizes that voice, "T-elos?"  
  
"No, it's U-DO. Who the fuck did you think it was, genius?"  
  
Kos-mos doesn't let herself get bothered by T-elos' snarky comment, "you went completely silent after I awoke, I was concerned you were never actually there in the first place." A chill suddenly shoots up Kos-mos' spine as it feels as though T-elos is standing right next to her.  
  
"Well what did you expect? Did you want me to just start chanting 'good morning' to you while you were still busy with those pals of yours?" Kos-mos frowns, she supposes she has a point but still... "Anyway I fail to see how it's a big deal, you know I'm here now."  
  
Kos-mos shakes her head in frustration but decides to let it go. "Very well, I suppose you're right, I will not bother worrying about it any longer." She goes back to staring at her reflection for another moment before she's pulled from her thoughts by her internal system informing her it finished scanning what she told it to.  
  
"Oh, T-elos, there is something I just confirmed that I need to tell you." Kos-mos can feel T-elos' curiosity through her own emotions, she says nothing but Kos-mos can tell she's waiting for her to continue. "It appears that somehow when we fused back on Michtam your operating system was added to my own, I almost wasn't able to tell at first because both our software programs are so similar." An odd emotion emanates from T-elos as she speaks, but Kos-mos doesn't really pick up on what it means and simply continues speaking. "Anyway I simply wanted to let you know that if you ever wanted to walk around at all this body will technically work for you as well."  
  
"Y-You..." Kos-mos is a bit off put by T-elos' tone and torrent of emotions and wonders if something she said bothered her... "Why- Why would you... Why would you tell me this? You realize we're enemies right!? And that now I can take your body anytime I wa-"  
  
"I do not believe you'd do that," Kos-mos suddenly cuts T-elos off, "I see no reason to still classify you as my enemy. With Mary Magdalene gone you really do not have any need for my body. Besides, I believe if you truly wanted to take my body from me you could have easily done so already."  
  
T-elos is silent for a long stretch of time, thinking about what Kos-mos just said. "You... I... A-Alright, I may take you up on that offer sometime" She finally answers Kos-mos. "But uhh... Do me a favor okay? Don't tell anyone I'm still around."  
  
Kos-mos frowns at her request, "well I suppose so... I see no reason I should have to tell anyone... But I will admit that one request is a bit suspicious. Why is that-"  
  
"KOS-MOS!" She's cut off by someone calling for her, she's been so focused on T-elos she'd forgotten to check her scanners for anyone nearby. "There you are Kos-mos, I've been looking all over for you." She turns around to see Shion quickly walking up to her.  
  
"Hello Shion. You decided to leave the party so soon?"  
  
"You left before I did, silly." She gives Kos-mos a playful nudge on the shoulder, Kos-mos can't help but notice how infections her smile and upbeat nature are. "Hey do you mind if we go somewhere more private, I wanted to talk to you."  
  
"Oh, of course, lead the way."  
  


* * *

  
  
Shion practically falls on her bed when she gets in the room, the party was fun but it certainly was exhausting. She then pats the spot next to her, gesturing for Kos-mos to sit down too.   
  
She perks up and quickly makes her way to the bed, Shion scooching over to make room for her. Even so the bed is a bit small and the two girls are smooshed pretty close together, but neither of them seem to mind. Shion even pushes herself a little bit closer to Kos-mos once she sits down.   
  
"It's so good to have you back," Shion cheerfully says, "it's almost just like before, we just need to go get Momo and Ziggy to come join us again."   
  
Kos-mos smiles softly at the Shion's enthusiasm. "Indeed, everyone certainly is just as lively as ever. It is nice to know that little has changed in the time I have been away."   
  
"Yeah well... Even so it still wasn't quite the same without you there, Kos-mos." Shion looks over at Kos-mos with a sad smile on her face, "I know I said I'd be okay, but... i still missed you so much. It's almost like a dream having you sit here next to me again." When she looks back she notices Kos-mos now looks concerned for her, and then feels her reach around and put a hand on her shoulder.   
  
Shion takes the opportunity to give Kos-mos a hug, burying her face into her neck and getting as close to her as she can. Kos-mos has a warmth about her which ,while it isn't quite human, is still very pleasant. Shion lets out a satisfied sigh when Kos-mos wraps her arms around her as well, and snuggles closer when she feels Kos-mos start stroking her hair.   
  
Shion had originally planned to talk to Kos-mos in this time, but now she doesn't want to move from the hug she had started. It was so soft and warm here, the bed seemed so much more uncomfortable compared to Kos-mos' arms.   
  
_ Oh well, I don't even remember what I was going to say, and the faint sound of fans and motors in her chest is much more compelling than words anyway... _ _   
_   
"Shion..."   
  
_ Oh, well that is quite compelling actually... Hearing her say my name that way. _ __   
  
She feels Kos-mos gently touch her cheek to lift her face from the crook of her neck, Shion's a bit annoyed by this but let's her do it anyway.   
  
"If I may ask, Shion, did you actually wish to talk with me? Or did you simply want someone to fall asleep on?" Kos-mos asks her in a playful sort of way, to which Shion decided to play along.   
  
"Hmm I don't know, I could talk to you, but I'm starting to feel really tired..." The big smile on Shion's face completely gives her joke away.   
  
"Well then, I suppose I should put you to bed." Shion blushes heavily, she doesn't think that Kos-mos meant for that to sound so suggestive but- Kos-mos doesn't give Shion another moment to think about it before she grabs her and flings them both backward. An assortment of things Shion had left there earlier were bounced off the bed, some pens, a communications device, and an empty bottle all clattered to the floor. The bed itself creaked loudly as they hit it, Shion imagines it wasn't made for heavy ass metal robots to be jumping on it.   
  
The noise calms down but starts back up when Shion starts laughing loudly, "HAHA KOS-MOS HA WHY DID Y- HHH YOU JUST FUCKING- AHAHA YOU MADE SUCH A MESS!" Shion pushes her face back into Kos-mos' neck while trying to contain her giggles, meanwhile Kos-mos simply smiles at how much she's able to make the other girl laugh.   
  
They lie like that for a while until Shion finally calms herself, she takes a few deep breaths before she starts talking again. "You sure are a tease Kos-mos, anyway I did actually want to talk and catch up with you. Sorry I've just spent this time so far just messing around."   
  
"It is alright Shion, I am simply glad to be able to spend time with you at all after all the time we were apart." She wraps her arms around Shion, and Shion feels her start to pet her hair again. "I was simply concerned that you wouldn't be able to tell me whatever it was you wanted."   
  
"Honestly I didn't even have anything in particular I wanted to say to you. I just wanted some time alone with you, to just talk and well... Do whatever the hell it is we've been doing so far." Shion smiles and leans more into Kos-mos, she always has enjoy talking to her so much. With most people Shion would be more hesitant to be quite as open as she was now, but it was never that way with Kos-mos, she was the one person she never had a hard time being herself around.   
  
"So Kos-mos, I know you said you missed me while we were apart... Does that mean you were still conscious that entire time?"   
  
"I... Suppose... It is difficult to explain."   
  
Shion looks up at Kos-mos to see her looking down and off to the side, she seems to be deep in thought trying to figure out how to describe her experience. She reaches up and gently places her hand on Kos-mos' cheek and once give her a reassuring smile once she has her attention.   
  
Kos-mos places her own hand over Shion's before continuing, "well you see, I could not control of feel anything from my physical body. But I still... Existed... It was almost like a very long dream."   
  
"I see..." Shion strokes Kos-mos' face with her thumb, "that must have been awful, being forced to still be conscious while also not feeling anything and being all alone..." She moves to wrap her arms around Kos-mos again and lightly touches her forehead to Kos-mos'.   
  
"It is alright, I am not alone anymore. I am here with you now, Shion." She's so close now she can feel Kos-mos' breath with every word she says.   
  
"Yeah, and now that you're here I never want to let you go again." Kos-mos' eyelids flutter as she blinks turning her gaze off to the side, Shion can see a dull glowing blush appear on the other girl's face.   
  
"That... That would make me quite happy, actually." Shion's grip on Kos-mos tightens slightly, like a silent promise.   
  
Shion shudders just a bit while holding Kos-mos, she wants to get even closer to her but they're already hugging tightly as possible. Shion leans her head into Kos-mos', which she responds to by leaning her own head into Shion's, but it's just not enough.   
  
So, with barely thinking about it, Shion pushes her face into Kos-mos' and locks lips with her.   
  
It's not long or passionate, just a small but heartfelt peck. Kos-mos gladly gives her another one in return after she pulls away. Shion's not really sure what to say now, she just kissed the girl she'd dreamt of kissing for so long now. So instead of saying anything she just lies close to Kos-mos and gently closes her eyes.   
  
Shion stays awake to hug and pet Kos-mos for only a bit longer before she drifts to sleep in the warmth of her arms.   



	8. Shenanigans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this chapters p short but like... it's been 2 months... and I'm not rlly v close to the point I was going to end this chapter at so...
> 
> anyway lot of shenanigans w kosmos and shion this chapter and not much plot

Shion shifts a bit in her sleep, slowly starting to wake up. It's odd, she swears that she fell asleep in her room this time, but still she hears the distinct sound of a computer fan next to her.  
  
As the world starts to come in focus she sees nothing but various shades of blue, she also starts to hear Mary and Shelling talking somewhere in the room. Shion rubs her eyes a little and reaches over to the nightstand to grab her glasses. It takes a moment of tired fumbling before she can grab them and put them on, as she does her vision sharpens.  
  
The big blue blob she's laying next to becomes recognizable as hair, and it's pretty dang easy for her to tell who that hair belongs to. Kos-mos lays quietly on her side next to her, just like last night. Last night....  
  
 _OH, I almost completely forgot what happened last night!_  
  
The disorienting feeling of just waking up leaves Shion with that thought.  
  
 _Oh.... Oh god I kissed Kos-mos, and then I fell asleep with her. What did Mary and Shelley think when they came back? Wait when even did they get back? At least we're both dressed... Oh actually Kos-mos is still in full armor, isn't that uncomfortable?_ _  
_  
She's pulled out of her thoughts when she notices Kos-mos slowly open her eyes, "good morning, Shion. I do hope that you slept well." Kos-mos shifts and looks a little uncomfortable with her position, she flips over to lie on her stomach instead, laying her head on her pillow between her arms.  
  
"G-good morning Kos-mos... yes I uh, slept well."  
  
"Well good mornin' you two!" Shion lifts her head when she hears Mary call to them, she's just barely visible in the lower part of their room and she appears to be working on curling her hair. "I sure do hope we didn' wake y'all up, we got back pretty late last night."  
  
"Yes the little master insisted on staying up pretty late," Shelley seems a lot more exhausted than her sister, rubbing her eyes as she speaks.  
  
"No, no, you're fine, I didn't hear you at all." Shion does her best to not seem too awkward and embarrassed while speaking, but she still can't help but feel the room is just too hot. "H-hey I think I'm gonna get up and uh, shower now..."  
  
Shion practically jumps out of bed and starts gathering her things, even though Mary and Shelley have gone back to their business she still feels as though everyone's eyes are one her. Back on her bed Kos-mos stretches in an almost cat-like fashion, resulting in a few metallic sounding cracks from her spine. Shion didn't even know Kos-mos needed to stretch, although after what happened on Michtam she guesses that it only makes sense for her to act a bit more human.  
  
"Would you like me to wait out here for you, Shion?"  
  
"Yeah, I shouldn't be too long." Shion only gives a brief glance back at Kos-mos before she makes her way over to the bathroom, "once I'm done I guess we should also head out and actually plan on what we're doing next. In the meantime though, you can just relax."  
  
Shion feels a bit better now that she's away from the others, she sets out her change of clothes and a clean towel then continues following her regular schedule in an almost robotic matter. She takes off her glasses and her attention is pulled back to the other room when she hears her friends laughing. It's muffled but she can definitely tell Mary and Shelley are talking with Kos-mos about something.  
  
Shion considers just letting it go and just showering... For all of two seconds...  
  
Letting curiosity get the better of her Shion quietly steps a bit closer to the door, leaning her ear right next to it.  
  
"-on what were you two REALLY doing last night?" Shion hears Mary pester (she assumes) Kos-mos through the door. Shelley seems to say something afterwards, but she's a bit too quiet and she can't really pick apart what it is.  
  
"I have already told you, Shion simply wanted to talk with me privately and so we did. The specifics of our night does not matter to you."  
  
"Hahaha oh come on, we've seen how you two act together enough to know that's not all."  
  
"Well why don't you simply continue believing whatever you wish then?"  
  
Shion backs away from the door rolling her eyes, __oh jeeze Mary... She continues to listen to Mary bother Kos-mos in the other room while she goes right back to cleaning up.  
  


* * *

  
  
Kos-mos sits on the edge of Shion's bed, the only sound coming from the shower in the other room. After about a few minutes Shelley had decided her sister had enough gossip for the day, and practically dragged her out of the room.  
 _  
_ _I suppose I simply could have told her what happened, but I think I would rather have Shion be the one to do so._ __  
  
Is that even a logical decision? She doesn't know. While she had begun to have slight thoughts like the ones now during the time just before Mary's awakening, they'd never been quite like this. They were very emotional thoughts that seemed to conflict so hard with what her logical drive was telling her, and it just left her feeling worn out and like she was going to overheat.  
  
"T-elos? Are you awake?"  
  
...  
  
Silence answers her question, she can only assume T-elos is still asleep in her mind. The time she spends by herself is grating, Kos-mos has been alone plenty of times in the past however after having already gone so long with only herself and occasionally Chaos it's become less bearable.  
  
"HEY, KOS-MOS?"  
  
Her head jolts up at the sound of Shion from the bathroom, and she then hastily makes her way over to the panel by the door and switches on the communication device. "Yes, Shion, is there something you need?"  
  
"Yeah, um... I'm sorry, but I completely forgot the other night I told Allen we'd go test out your combat systems today. But of course you're not where you'd normally be, so he's probably a bit confused now..."  
  
"Oh, I see. Would you like me to call him and tell him to come here then?"  
  
"Well sort of... I would just do it myself if that were it I'd just call him myself, but uhh... Listen, Kos-mos, Allen really REALLY thought me and him were gonna ummm..."  
  
"I think I see where you are going with this."  
  
"Yes, and if I had any idea what I'd say to him as to why you slept here with me I would, but..."  
  
"Understood, I will go easy on him."  
  
"Thanks Kossy." Shion's last word only just barely gets out before Kos-mos hangs up and makes her way back to the bed, grabbing Shion's communication device. She then nearly drops it as her body shivers just a bit.  
  
"Oh good, you're awake."  
  
"T-elos?" She immediately recognizes the voice of her companion.  
  
"Hey you really have to warn me before you go and make out like that, had I known I was going to have to be part of that I would've gone to sleep earlier." First thing in the morning and already T-elos is snapping at her.  
  
"I would not really consider that 'making out'" Kos-mos mutters under her breath, "anyway I had assumed that you would have gone to sleep after me and Shion left to talk. Seeing as that was supposed to be a private conversation."  
  
"O-oh, yeah, well..." T-elos' voice seems to shrink at Kos-mos' accusatory tone, losing all the spite she had earlier. "Well, that's not important right now. Anyway don't you have other things to attend to?"  
  
"Oh, yes I do." Kos-mos hurries and calls up Allen's number, embarrassed that she let T-elos distract her in the first place.  
  
"Hey chief." Allen picks up rather quickly, and his voice comes through the device almost instantly.  
  
"Actually it is Kos-mos, Shion is a bit busy at the moment." Shion herself actually comes out of the bathroom as she says that, but she then goes to blow drying her hair near where Mary was curling her hair earlier.  
  
"Oh! well uh... Hi Kos-mos. Where have you been?"  
  
"I am here in the girls room with Shion, actually that is why I am calling, Shion needs you to come up here to discuss what we are going to do."  
  
"Okay, but uuuh, what were you doing up there? The professor said you never came down to your pod."  
  
Kos-mos had planned to tell Allen that Shion wanted her to feel more human by sleeping in a bed, but she's overcome by an odd feeling. It felt as though her physical form starts to get distant as she's forced to the back of her mind by something... No... More like someone.  
  
"I FUCKED SHION!" T-elos yells out in Kos-mos' voice. Allen doesn't get another word in as she hangs up on him and drops the phone.  
  
"KOS-MOS!"  
  
Kos-mos is then shoved back to her physical body only to immediately begin blushing, her inner systems feel like they may melt due to the intense heat. She's stuck with a very confused and flustered Shion she can't explain the situation to as T-elos howls with laughter in her mind.  
  
Shion sighs, "well... Well.... I suppose you sort of did what I asked you. And maybe the 'ripping it off like a bandaid' approach was for the best, but..." Kos-mos slowly turns to look at Shion who just looks... Disappointed. "I just really wish you wouldn't have said it like that... I mean he's going to come up here now and I'm going to have to explain to him that we didn't actually... Like if you really wanted to tell him that we kissed that'd be fine, but like.. You weren't even telling the truth."  
  


* * *

  
  
Kos-mos briskly follows behind Shion and Allen toward the cargo bay of the elsa, still just a little frazzled from their shenanigans earlier. Shion had to explain to Allen that they did NOT in fact fuck and that Kos-mos was just goofing around with him. There's still a bit of awkward silence, though, before they finally reach the cargo bay.   
  
"Alright then," Shion proclaims, stopping her two companions. "It may be a little hard to test everything out in such a confined space, but it's important that we make sure everything is working properly."   
  
Kos-mos watches and listens diligently as Shion goes over every system they must go over, some targets they have to set up to properly test them, and a reminder to not use too much of a high power output so the ship isn't wrecked. Kos-mos feels calm and warm as she listens to Shion talk, and though she's still getting a grasp on her emotions this feeling is not new to her.   
  
She feels herself pulled back from her thoughts as Shion places her hand on Kos-mos' shoulder. "Are you ready to start, Kos-mos?" Shion displays a soft smile as she speaks to her, and Kos-mos does her best to give Shion a smile back as she answers.   
  
"Yes, I am ready to start whenever you are."   
  
It's a simple answer, but Shion seems pleased with it as her and Allen go to set up a few targets for Kos-mos. Kos-mos decides to take a seat on an empty crate while watching them.   
  
"So, what are we doing today lovebird?" A familiar chill crawls up her spine as T-elos' voice echoes through her mind.   
  
_ Just some weapons tests and then we are heading down to the planet's surface. _ Kos-mos decides not to speak out loud, as she figures T-elos could hear her anyway. Not to mention it would raise some questions from Shion and Allen if she suddenly started talking to herself.   
  
T-elos gives a simple grunt to signify she understood, but doesn't make a move to speak again. With their short conversation over Kos-mos shifts her attention back to Allen and Shion, mostly the later though. It looks like Shion is going over a list to Allen right now, pointing off to some targets occasionally.   
  
_ You know T-elos, your joke was not that funny to me when you first did it. However after seeing Allen's face it was just a bit funny. _ __   
  
"Haha yeah he looked like he was going to pass out!" Kos-mos finds herself smiling along with T-elos' laughter,   
  
"Okay Kos-mos we're all set up, come on over!"   
  
Shion looks up from her list to smile at Kos-mos as she makes her way over, T-elos mockingly makes a little kissing sounds which Kos-mos barely resists the urge to roll her eyes at. "Alright to start us off I think it's pretty important that we make sure your hilbert effect still works properly. Care to give us a little demonstration?"   
  
"Of course, Shion." Kos-mos takes a few steps away from the others, and a visor (similar to her first one) slips down to cover her eyes. Although she worries she may be a little rusty after so much time, the familiar feeling of her combat system switching on washes that away and a blue light is emitted around her as the hilbert effect activates.   



	9. For fuck's sake Allen, just get your feet wet, it doesn't matter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> updates? in my fanfic?  
> it's more likely than you think

Jr practically hops in place waiting for the elsa to finally land, any other time he would feel silly for how excited he is, but he's just been cooped up in a tiny ship for SO LONG. He takes a quick look over at his comrades, wondering if any of them are as excited as he is.  
  
Shion, at the very least, seems a bit anxious. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other as she goes through a weapons list on her comm device. Any confidence Allen may have had seems to have vanished now, as usual he's a shaky nervous wreck now that something important is about to happen. And finally, despite learning that she does in fact have a soul back on Michtam, Kos-mos seems as apathetic as Jr has come to expect from her.  
  
No... Apathetic isn't exactly the right word. At first glance she seems perfectly calm and collected, but upon looking closer Jr notices she's fidgeting with some settings on her headset, almost neurotically.  
  
Jr's at least glad to see he's not the only one anxious to get off the ship, maybe disincluding Allen though, as he just seems to be anxious in general.  
  
"Hey I was thinking," Shion's voice cuts through the tension in the air, "after a little bit of reconnaissance maybe we should head back to the Dämmerung. The others should be excited to hear that we finally found Lost Jerusalem, and I also think Kos-mos would benefit from some weapon upgrades."  
  
"Yeah definitely! Don't worry Shion, I'm getting sick of being on this ship too..." Jr still hops in place wondering what the fuck is taking Tony so long to land.  
  
"Well that's not exactly why I mentioned it..."  
  
"I mean, I don't think Kos-mos will need any upgrades chief..."  
  
That was obviously NOT the answer Shion was looking for as she then shoots a very angry look toward Allen, causing him to flinch.  
  
"Based off the current situation I believe it would be wise to go back to the Dämmerung after this anyway." Everyone turns towards the sound of Kos-mos suddenly speaking up, "I fail to see how the reasoning behind it matters. But we should discuss this later, as we appear to have arrived."  
  
The cargo door almost doesn't have a chance to open all the way before Jr leaps out of it, he lands with a roll then quickly gets up on his knees holding his pistols at the ready and looking around for enemies. It looks like he copied it straight from an old action movie (which he did), but regardless he manages to pull it off pretty well.  
  
Shion laughs quietly at her friends antics as she makes her way down, Kos-mos follows closely behind her, and Allen just a bit behind Kos-mos.  
  
"All right, the coast is clear." Jr proclaims standing all the way up, obviously still trying to act cool.  
  
"Seems like it, but let's just make sure we're positive. Kos-mos do you think you could give us a quick wide area scan?"  
  
"I am already ahead of you Shion... It seems as though the immediate area is clear, although there 5 gnosis approximately 6.457 kilometers northwest of us." She looks off towards the trees in silence for a moment, a thoughtful expression on her face, before turning back to Shion. "There's about a 45.876% chance they'll notice either us or the Elsa... Would you like to go eliminate them now, or try to avoid gaining their attention?"  
  
Jr carefully considers her words for a moment then looks back to the others. "Hmm, what do you guys think? We could probably take them, but are we gonna cause a big commotion and draw other's here if we do that?"  
  
"That is something I'm concerned about..." Shion says, adjusting her glasses slightly between her sentences. "Hey, Kos-mos, is there any chance you could keep tabs on those gnosis while we look around?"  
  
"Yes, we should be able to walk approximately 10 kilometers before they're out of range-"  
  
"Okay, great! Let's get going then!" Jr rushes off as fast as his little legs will take him.  
  
"HEY, Jr wait!" Allen shouts as he tries to run after him, he's quickly overtaken by Shion who follows just slightly behind Jr. Kos-mos lags behind, not really interested in catching up and simply going at her own pace. "Slow down!"  
  
"No way, you speed up"  
  


* * *

  
  
Shion surveys her surroundings, trying to get a good grasp on where Jr is leading them. He's slowed down a little bit so that they don't all get lost. By the looks of it the group is coming up to what appears to be an abandoned city, it's all but completely overgrown, and many of the buildings looked very unstable and worn down.  
  
Finally Jr slows to a stop just outside the city, Shion gives a glance back to the others to make sure they kept up okay. Allen is hunched over and panting, trying to assure them that he's okay between his heavy breaths. He's obviously not okay but at least he's... There.  
  
There's a brief moment of panic when Shion doesn't see Kos-mos anywhere, but as she looks again she sees her slowly making her way over a hill a little while back. She looks like she's just out on a casual stroll, occasionally glancing around at the scenery around her. The gravity of where they are right now clearly doesn't bother or affect her whatsoever.  
  
"So... Aside from just checking the place out what exactly are we supposed to do here?" Jr looks up expectantly at Shion.  
  
"I'm not exactly sure... Chaos was a bit vague in his explanation."  
  
"Well what's the fun if I just tell you all?"  
  
Every jumps in surprise as Chaos is just... Suddenly there. Shion's handles it a tiny bit better seeing as this shit already happened once, but she's still taken back, Jr jumps about 3 feet in the air, and Allen falls on his ass.  
  
"Oh, there you are." Kos-mos finally catches back up with the others, Chaos giving her a little 'hello' when she does.  
  
"Chaos! Buddy!" After getting over his immediate surprise Jr runs right up to give Chaos a hug. "I can't believe you're here, hey maybe don't spook us all so bad next time we have a reunion, kay."  
  
"Yeah, sorry about that," Chaos mumbles under his breath, then reaching down and petting Jr on the head.  
  
Shion smiles and decides to join her friends in the reunion, wrapping one arm around Chaos and reaching the other down around Jr. It's just the three of them for a moment before Shion feels someone else's arm wrap around her and Chaos. She looks up and notices Kos-mos on the other side of Chaos, she grips everyone almost a little too lightly but it's still nice.  
  
"Uhh..." Allen shuffles in place awkwardly, just standing to the side of everyone unsure of what to do.  
  
"Oh, sorry Allen, did you need a hug too?" Chaos lifts his hand from Jr's head as to offer a hug to Allen, but Jr grumbles and reaches up and grabs his hand putting it back on it's previous spot on his head. This earns him a light chuckle from Chaos.  
  
"Oh, no, it's fine. I was just wondering uuuuhhhhh, just how in the world did you get here!???"  
  
"Oh don't be silly Allen, no one wants to waste exposition time hearing about that." Allen quietly mumbles 'I kinda did' to himself but no one hears and Chaos just continues anyway. "I'm glad to see that you all finally made it here! And I'm especially glad to see you up and moving again," he gestures to Kos-mos, "I was a little worried with how bad you got messed up back there."  
  
"Thank you for your concern, Shion and Mr. Ridgely certainly did a lot to get me back into working condition."  
  
"Alright enough chatting," Jr tugs lightly at Chaos' arm, "now that a certain someone's here we'll know exactly where we're supposed to go. Riiiiight???"  
  
"Ah, sorry Jr, I'm not sure I can be that much help." Chaos awkwardly shifts and scratches the back of his head.  
  
"What!? C'mon you can't be cryptic now, we're almost doooooneeee."  
  
"Well it's not really a matter of being cryptic... I said the answers lied on lost jerusalem, I didn't say I knew exactly where on it that was."  
  
"Alright you two, come on." Shion get's behind Chaos and lightly starts pushing him and Jr towards the abandoned city, "You can have this conversation on the way."  
  


* * *

  
  
The sound of footsteps echoes throughout the empty city, accompanied only by the sound of leaves rustling in the wind and a distant wind chime hanging on a balcony of one of the tall buildings.  
  
Even though Shion suggested the all split up Allen still wanted to stick near someone else, he hadn't really intended for that someone to be Kos-mos but at least she's objectively the strongest of their group. Still as the two of them make their way through the city he keeps an eye out for the others.  
  
 _I know the chief said she wasn't going too far, but still..._  
  
Taking a peek at an open door to a small shop Allen decides he should at least do some looking of his own. "Hey Kos-mos?"  
  
Kos-mos is just across the street from Allen, holding up some boards she lifted off an atm. She perks up at the sound of her name, and drops the boards to go see what Allen needs.  
  
"Yes, Mr. Ridgely?"  
  
"You can just call me Allen you know... But anyway, do you think this shop here is stable enough for me to go in and uuhh... Be safe?"  
  
Kos-mos tilts her head in the direction of the shop, she briskly makes her way around Allen and towards the opened door. Her eyes scan around the inside of the building and then back to the door frame. Kos-mos then takes a half step back, lifts her right foot, and kicks the door frame. The roof of the building immediately caves in, along with all the walls. A puff of dust and debris blows out the door and gets all over Kos-mos before the door frame finally follows suit and falls apart, crashing to the ground.  
  
Kos-mos backs up a bit and turns back towards Allen. "No."  
  
"O-Okay... Thanks Kos-mos."  
  
Allen feels a lot less secure as the two of them start walking again, he feels as anything could fall apart on them right at that very moment. Especially since Kos-mos won't stop being rough with everything, as soon as she sees any terminal or electronic device she thinks may work, she just shoves anything blocking it to the floor.  
  
"Kos-mos please, you're going to break something," he calls out to her.  
  
"I don't really see the point of your concern, it is already broken." Kos-mos steps away from the terminal she was just examining, "anyhow as long as you stay away from all the smaller structures there's a very low chance any of these larger buildings will cave in on you."  
  
"Well I don't know..." Allen nervously scans the area, "it might still be dangerous..."  
  
Allen doesn't notice as he ends up stepping on a fallen branch, it lets out a loud snap as it cracks and breaks under his foot.  
  
"HAH!"  
  
"GAAH!"  
  
At the sound of the branch breaking Jr, who was on an elevated highway nearby, jumps out from his hiding place behind a car. Dual wielding both his pistols at the source of the sound.  
  
"Jr! Why did you do that!?" Allen yells up from the spot he fell on the ground.  
  
"I thought you were a gnosis," Jr calls back down to him, "why are you sneaking around and being so skittish?"  
  
"Actually I believe I would argue that the one jumping out and pointing his guns at anything that moves is the more skittish one."  
  
"Well I.... No, yeah, that's fair actually."  
  
Kos-mos goes and helps Allen up off the ground, "while you are here, have you by any chance come across any active electronics in the city?"  
  
"Not that I can think of, I'll be on the lookout though." With that Jr takes his leave, and runs out of sight further down the highway.  
  
"So... Where to now-" Without a word as soon as she helps Allen up Kos-mos makes her way down a nearby alleyway to another part of the city. "Well okay, right to the point then... I guess..."  
  
Allen follows after the android as quickly as he can, Kos-mos occasionally glances back and makes sure he's keeping up. It's only a short while before the small alleyway opens up to a large clearing, a park by the looks of it. Like the rest of the city it's been completely overrun with foliage, and the small man made river that runs through it has overflowed and flooded some of the lowered areas of the park.  
  
"Woah..." Allen looks around, trying to take all of the park in. While looking he actually notices someone up in one of the buildings surrounding it, a large portion of the wall is missing so he's actually able to clearly see who it is.  
  
"Oh, hey chief!"  
  
From her spot a few stories up Shion looks down and notices the two of them. "Oh, hi guys!"  
  
Allen considers going up to see how she's doing, but he can't seem to find a way across the river... Any bridges that are still left unbroken have flooded over, only the highest point in the middle makes it over the water.  
  
"Umm... How do I-"  
  
There's a splash, looking over he notices that Kos-mos has just started wading through the river. Or, more like walking, the deepest part only comes up to just below her hips.  
  
"Oh okay I guess I'll just meet you over there." Allen probably could just walk across with her, but he's not really in a rush to get all wet. So he instead continues looking around for a dry way across the river.  
  


* * *

  
  
Kos-mos' heels clack with each step on the solid marble floor, it was easy enough for her to find her way in and up the stairs to the floor she saw Shion on. She wonders if she should tell T-elos to go to the back of her mind, seeing as she was so grumpy about it that morning. But Kos-mos hasn't heard from her for the entire time they've been on the surface so she just assumes she's not around anyway.   
  
A soft breeze brushes past her as she makes it to the section of the building where the outer wall is missing. Kos-mos notices Shion sitting on the edge of the floor near where Allen spotted her, simply looking out at the scenery.   
  
Shion perks up when she notices Kos-mos and pats the spot next to her, motioning Kos-mos to sit. To which Kos-mos obliges. "Hey, Kos-mos."   
  
"Good afternoon, Shion. How has your search of the city been going?"   
  
"You mean aside from finding this gorgeous view?" Shion goes to rest her hand on Kos-mos' thigh but recoils after touching her, "you're all wet..."   
  
"Oh, yes... Sorry, we came in on the other side of the river and I saw no other way to cross." Kos-mos bashfully glances back down at the park, wondering to herself if Allen managed to find a dry way across. She sees no sign of him and can only assume he went to look further up or down stream.   
  
"Well... That's alright, you'll dry off." Shion reaches her arm around Kos-mos and rests it on her shoulder instead. More comfortable with this position Shion leans into the other girl.   
  
"Something tells me you are actually not all that interested in finding anything in the city right now." Kos-mos remarks as a playful jab at Shion. She wraps her own arm around Shion's waist too so that she doesn't mistakenly think she's being serious.   
  
"Hey now, don't you make fun of me." Shion huffs, a smile still plastered on her face.   
  
The two of them sit in silence like that for a minute, Kos-mos occasionally checks in on her wide range scanner, but the gnosis seem to be moving out of its range. They're moving away from the Elsa, however, so she doubts it is a problem. As soon as the gnosis leave the scanner's range she dilutes its senses and focuses instead on her immediate surroundings.   
  
"This is nice, huh." Shion muses, "I've always enjoyed the quiet little moments we get together." Shion closes her eyes and rests her head on Kos-mos' shoulder.   
  
"As do I... I would suggest you do not fall asleep this time." Kos-mos lifts Shion's head with her free hand.   
  
"Mmm, stop, I'm was was comfortable there." Shion lifts her own free hand to try and swat Kos-mos' hand away.   
  
Kos-mos finds herself softly laughing as she continues to mess with Shion, lightly pinching and poking her face while Shion continuously tries to swat her away. Shion begins laughing along with her, "c-c'mon- haha- stop that!"   
  
Eventually Kos-mos stops, resting her hand back on the floor next to her. "I doubt you will be able to sleep now."   
  
"You little shit," Shion mumbles at Kos-mos. "Okay, if I promise not to fall asleep will you let me rest my head here?"   
  
"Hmm... Perhaps..." Kos-mos attempts to be smug but Shion moves the arm she has around her shoulder and grabs the back of Kos-mos head, pulling her in for a deep but otherwise quick kiss. While Kos-mos is still dazed by Shion's bold advances Shion quickly pushes her head back onto Kos-mos' shoulder and closes her eyes.   
  
Kos-mos glances back down at her, still frazzled.  _ Perhaps I am a little shit, Shion, but you forget who did most of the coding for my AI. _ Kos-mos decides to let her be this time, and just rests her own head on top of Shion's   
  
Without the scanner taking up her senses she's able to better focus on little things, her uncomfortably soggy thigh highs sticking to her legs, Shion's warm breath on the crook of her neck, the breeze blowing strands of her hair out of her face only for them to drift back, The sound of gunshots in the distance... Wait...   
  
Kos-mos' head snaps up, causing Shion to shift and become alert as well. Her Wide range scanners immediately come back online, revealing something she should have noticed earlier.   
  
"Kos-mos?" She doesn't answer Shion, her visor snaps down covering her face and the entire area around them is filled with the blue light of the hilbert effect.   
  
That's all the answer Shion needs, within seconds the two of them are up and sprinting back down the stairs.   
  
_ This should not have happened, I should have noticed noticed that gnosis long before it came in the city, I should not have turned my scanners off, I just- _ __   
  
Quickly they approach the exit, Passing someone as they run out.   
  
"Oh hey- AAA."   
  
Kos-mos almost accidentally knocks Allen over as she rushes past him as quickly as her legs will take her. As they approach the river Shion uses the partially submerged bridge to cross, while Kos-mos once again just plows right through the middle of the river.   
  
"AW COME ONE YOU TWO, I JUST FOUND A WAY ACROSS THERE!"


	10. Can you tell I've given up naming these chapters yet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully this chapter's good, I kinda had to step out of my comfort zone for it and I was kind of just :/

Jr looks back and shoots at the group of gnosis chasing after him, he knows it won't do much right now but at the very least it'll hopefully distract them so that he can gain some distance. He starts to wish he would have stayed with Chaos or Kos-mos instead of going off on his own.  
  
"These filthy vermin... Thinking they can hunt us down like their prey. If I had my body right now I would be more than pleased to show them all how pathetic they actually are."  
  
"Yeah, I would offer you mine, but I'm guessing it doesn't really work that way." Jr responds to his brother, while still running. He needs to do something to turn the situation around, but he's not sure what. "Shit... I need to think fast..." He looks ahead to see a mess of crashed and flipped cars, making a couple blockades on the highway.  
  
"Alright, that'll work. Albedo you wanna give me a hand?"  
  
"But of course, Rubedo~" Having already read his brother's mind, Albedo get's right to work. Jr's limbs fill with an odd tingly feeling for a moment before he begins to lose all feeling in them all together. With control of his body now Albedo turns and uses his hand to fling a blast of energy at the ground just below the gnosis. A power that he has much better control of than his brother.  
  
The feeling quickly returns to Jr's body, and he fluidly finishes the movement his brother started. Turning and running again, he leaps over the hood of one of the cars and then dodges between a few to a small open spot.  
  
He still grips his pistols tightly, but hopefully his hiding spot will buy him a minute to catch his breath and wait for backup. He doesn't dare try to look out at the gnosis and risk blowing his cover, but by the sound of it they're still way to close for comfort  
  
After a minute of sitting in his hiding spot there's an odd yet familiar feeling that passes through his body, followed by the sound of slightly pained howling from the gnosis. Jr smirks as he recognizes it as the hilbert effect, "it's about time," wasting no time he jumps out from behind the piled up vehicles and rains a barrage of bullets on the now vulnerable gnosis.  
  
The first one, a small quadruped gnosis, goes down rather easily. However the two humanoid ones standing just behind it manage to tank Jr's hits, wounded but still standing.  
  
He reaches down to reload his pistols as the gnosis begin moving toward him again, but is beat to the kill as the sound of footsteps quickly approaches from down the highway. The form of Chaos comes into view, his palms glowing brightly with energy, he quickly approaches the gnosis and punches it. All of Chaos' momentum as he comes to a halt is forced into the gnosis, knocking it to the side into the other one, the force causing them both to fall over completely limp.  
  
Jr stands there staring agape at Chaos for a moment before he speaks up, "I uhh... I had em you know."  
  
There's a deep growl as a flying gnosis wanders close to Jr while him and Chaos are distracted, Jr quickly swerves around to face the gnosis. He reaches down, flustered, trying once again to reload his guns so he can shoot but is once again beat to the kill.  
  
The gnosis is shot right through what Jr assumes is it's head, his view follows the trail of the bullet back to its source below the elevated highway. Kos-mos is standing there holding an energy rifle at the ready, Just behind her Shion gets her own weapon ready and Allen soon catches up and gets his crossbow ready.  
  
"I would suggest that you take care of reloading your weapon before the enemy is right on top of you." Kos-mos shouts up at him, before moving to snipe down another flying gnosis.  
  
Jr takes her advice, reloading his pistols quite fluidly now that he has a moment to breathe. He can't help but notice that his first fight has caused a bit of a snowball effect now, with every time they shoot down one gnosis the sound alerts every other nearby one of their presence.  
  
"Just how many of these things are there?" Shion shouts over the chaos as she slashes one across the chest, Jr shoots down at it as well once she backs up.  
  
"I should apologize, I shouldn not have dropped my scanners back there." Kos-mos speaks, while not losing a single bit of focus in shooting. "I should have known better than to let my guard down while we were still in such a dangerous place."  
  
"No, I should apologize." Jr hears Chaos say, after knocking another gnosis to the ground. "If only I had been able to get rid of all the gnosis back on michtam... We wouldn't be in this situation in the first place."  
  
"No, Chaos it's not your fault. If anything it's mine," Shion takes her chance to speak up now, "I shouldn't have suggested that we split up."  
  
"No, no, guys I should apologize." Now it's Jr's turn, "I should have ran from them instead of shooting them and making a big ruckus."  
  
"Oh for crying out loud- We all suck, okay! Can we please leave now!?" Allen yells, breaking up their pity party. He then makes some clumsy shots at a small stealthy gnosis that's running at him.  
  
"Allen! Watch out!" Shion shouts and shoots the gnosis with her MWS, it's hit and goes right down.  
  
"Wow, thanks chie- AAAHHH!" Allen tries to thank her but is nearly knocked over by yet another gnosis that's snuck up behind him. Luckily for him as soon as he turns around the gnosis is shot down by Kos-mos. "Oh jeeze... Thank you too Kos-mos."  
  
"You are welcome, now I'd suggest that you all get down. My X-weapon system is fully charged and I intend to fire."  
  
Everyone's quick to duck for cover, getting behind whatever rubble they can. "Hey, Kos-mos? Can you like, aim that thing?" Jr calls out from behind the stack of cars him and Chaos are situated behind. "Because it's a spread beam and we're all spread out... And yeah, I know we're behind stuff, but I feel like that's going to blast through anything we get behind anywa-"  
  
The sound of beams firing out and destroying whatever they crash into as X-Buster is fired cuts Jr off. He watches as gnosis after gnosis is shot and absorbed, a few buildings and random objects taking some collateral damage as well. A beam flies right past their hiding spot, taking a chunk of car with it, a few more whir by as well and then after a moment the attack finishes and the noise stops.  
  
Jr and Chaos peek up over their barricade to look back at Kos-mos, the compartment on her stomach closes and she loosens up just a bit with the battle now over.  
  
"Great job guys, let's call it a day!"  
  


* * *

  
  
Kos-mos sits at one of the tables of the elsa diner, watching Shion rush back and forth around the diner trying to get food to everyone. After fighting off all the gnosis the group decided that they should head back (mainly because anything of interest got wrecked in x-buster's wake).   
  
"Shion, are you certain you don't need any help?"    
  
"Yes, I'm fine. Thanks for offering again though, Kos-mos."   
  
Shion runs off yet again, Kos-mos watches her go until she's out of the room and Kos-mos is on her own at the table again. There's at least an odd sense of comfort with everyone else in the diner, but she doesn't have anyone in particular to talk to or anything to do. She can hear everyone else's conversations pretty well though.   
  
At the table behind her Tony and Hammer excitedly chat and catch up with Chaos. Tony mentions that they should throw another party for Chaos now, to which Hammer adds that they'll have to go back to the Dämmerung to get more party supplies first.   
  
_ Did we not just have a party the other day? Wait, I missed what Chaos just said... And now Hammer is... crying....... _ _   
_   
She decides she does not really need to eavesdrop on their conversation and instead diverts her attention elsewhere. Over near the entrance of the diner Matthews is arguing with the professor over a shopping list. As much as the professor tries to assure him that he absolutely needs everything on that list the captain won't have it and believes that many of the items on it are too expensive and take up too much space.   
  
Admittedly Kos-mos isn't too sure what anyone would need with that much pure chromium anyhow.   
  
Allen and Scott sit at the bar chatting about their day's events with each other. Scott offers Allen a drink every now and then, but with every offer he refuses.   
_   
_ _ I would assume he does not want a repeat of last night. _ _   
_   
Lastly she turns her attention to Jr, he's playing the video game set up in the corner of the diner. Mary sits nearby watching him play, Shelley soon joins her with a freshly made cup of tea in hand.   
  
Everyone seems fairly relaxed and comfortable, it's nice to know as Kos-mos does consider everyone to be her friends, but that doesn't make it any easier for her to join in on anyone's conversations.   
  
She then picks up on Shion coming near the room again, and sure enough within a few moments the door slides open and she hears Shion's footsteps. Kos-mos turns her head and uncomfortably shifts in her seat, wanting to ask Shion if she needs any assistance (again), but it appears that one of the ship's maintenance droids is already helping her carry all the plates of food.   
  
_ Oh well... That was nice of them to help at least. _   
  
She watches the two of them work on passing out plates to everyone in the diner, forgetting completely in that moment that humans consider it rude to stare. After everyone else gets theirs Shion takes the last two plates to the table Kos-mos sits at, and takes a seat right across from her.   
  
"You appear to have made some extra."   
  
"It's not extra, silly. This one's for you." Shion pushes the plate closer to Kos-mos. "And before you go saying something like 'oh, but Shion, I do not require food to function'-" Kos-mos snaps her mouth shut, a little off put by how easily Shion can read her. "-Keep in mind that eating can just be for enjoyment too. Which is why I want you to try some."   
  
The knowledge that it will make Shion happy is all Kos-mos needs to make her more than eager to dig right in. Now Kos-mos wasn't made with mundane tasks like 'eating' in mind, her speed, the way she moves, even just the sharpness of her teeth, these were all designed with only combat in mind. All these minute details put together make a very awkward, sloppy eater.   
  
It's when she slips her tongue out to lick up the sauce that's smeared all around her mouth that she looks up at Shion. Based on her expression Kos-mos can only guess that none of what she just did was graceful, proper, or socially acceptable.   
  
They remain locked in a bit of a staring contest for a moment, neither of them moving or saying anything.   
  
"S-Sorry..." Kos-mos breaks the silence, and then awkwardly reaches for a napkin from the nearby dispenser.   
  
"Oh, n- no it's fine Kos-mos!" Shion assures her while trying not to laugh, "really, I'm just glad you like it!"   
  
It doesn't really do much to assure her, though. While wiping her mouth off she scans the room to make sure no one else saw that mess. She's satisfied only when she's sure that Shion was the only one who was watching her. She tries to eat a lot slower this time, but it proves to be just as clumsy and messy as before. At this rate, she decides, she'd be better off just eating at the same speed as before and just accepting that she's going to be a mess.   
  
About halfway through her meal she simply gets too frustrated and just gives up on eating, she instead decides to watch Shion eat her food.   
  
"What are you crazy!? You can't honestly be suggesting what I think you are!"   
  
Kos-mos glances over to see Matthews and Tony arguing about something.   
  
"I wonder what they're yelling about..." Shion picks up her now empty plate, she reaches for Kos-mos' as well but stops. "Oh... You didn't finish yours."   
  
"No! I am going to finish it." Kos-mos replies a lot faster and louder than she had meant, she feels her systems heat up and tries to level her voice before continuing. "I simply wish to eat a bit slower than you, I will finish it though."   
  
"Oh, okay, I'll leave that there for you then." Shion gives her a smile then walks off to go clean her plate. Kos-mos doesn't immediately get back to her food, instead she decides she wants to listen in on whatever the captain is yelling about.   
  
"-I'm telling you, it'll be fine! It takes too much fuel to fly back up and put ourselves in orbit to sleep when we're already safely landed here-"   
  
"And I'm telling YOU captain that it's way too dangerous to sleep here! You know there's gnosis crawling around all over here!"   
  
Allen then decides it would be a good idea to join in on Tony and Matthews' skirmish. "I- I'm with Tony on this one captain, we're planning on going back for more supplies anyway so-"   
  
"WHO ASKED YOU!?" Matthews shouts back, causing Allen to fall backwards out of his seat, nearly knocking Scott over as he catches him. "Anyway isn't that what she's here to help with now?" Matthews gestures over to Kos-mos.   
  
__ Please do not involve me in this...   
  
"Actually captain seeing how I did not recharge last night, and with the battle today, I do not believe I will have enough energy in my reserves to help you tonight."   
  
"Wha- Well why didn't ya recharge last night!?"   
  
"That doesn't matter! You see captain, no matter what way you look at it we can't stay here! Even if Kos-mos could help we'd still probably be up all night paranoid that we'd be attacked!"   
  
"Now, now, let's not fight." Chaos gets up in an attempt to calm the two of them down, what Kos-mos assumes is her heart hurts as she watches this. She has to fight the urge to go grab him and drag him out of the diner so she can tell him that it's not worth it. "There's no need to shout, we're all friends here. And I'm sure if we just discuss this in a civil manner-"   
  
"Chaos, buddy, listen I know you've been gone a while but uuuhhh. You can't tell me you've already forgot who's CAPTAIN."   
  
"Oh that's just like you, not listening to anyone else, just because you're c-"   
  
Rather sick of their arguing, Kos-mos disables her hearing. The feeling of hostility still hangs in the air, and she can still see everyone getting angry. But everything is much more bearable without all the yelling now. She now sits there staring at everyone hoping that she'll eventually make them uncomfortable enough that they'll leave. Which, slowly but surely, they do eventually move the argument out of the diner.   
  
Kos-mos switches her sense of hearing back on and turns back to her food, which is probably only room temperature at best by now.   
  
"Fucking finally, I thought they'd never leave."   
  
"Good afternoon, T-elos, you certainly went quiet for quite a while today."   
  
"Well it wasn't my fault, did you notice that red head kid- What was his name again- Ruberto? He had Albedo in his subconscious with him."   
  
"I was not aware that you knew Albedo, or that you would be able to tell that from within my own subconscious." Kos-mos absentmindedly pokes around at her food a bit while talking to T-elos.   
  
"What do you mean? Of course I know him, I mean not too well, but he was a testament. I knew all the testaments but something about that guy always creeped me out above all others... Well... Actually now that I think about it Virgil could be pretty creepy too... Look I'm getting off topic, point is that if I could tell he's there then chances are he could probably also tell I'm here if I'm not careful."   
  
"I still do not see why that is such a big deal to you."   
  
"Why wouldn't it be? I was all your enemy only a few months ago." Kos-mos sees her point, but also feels it's a bit illogical to hide herself and risk everyone finding out and getting upset. Rather than simply being honest and getting everyone slowly used to having her around. "Hey are you... Are you going to finish that?"   
  
"Hmm?" Kos-mos is confused as to what she means for a moment, before she takes a glance at her food and recalls the offer she made to T-elos just the other night. "Oh! No, go ahead."   
  
Kos-mos tries to move her conscious to the back of her mind like T-elos has done, it doesn't go over quite as smoothly as she wanted and T-elos still has to force her way to the front to some extent. It's at least not nearly as uncomfortable as that morning, however.   
  
It's not exactly the most comfortable position for Kos-mos, she can still see through her body's eyes and still has a small grasp of it's senses, but of course it's T-elos controlling it and not her. I envy you for being able to do this all day without losing your mind, T-elos... She at least finds that she can distance herself more from her sense if she focuses enough, however.   
  
"I believe I am just going to rest for a bit, you are more than welcome to walk around as much as you want when you are done here. Please just make sure you get us to my recharge station before tonight."

* * *

  
  
T-elos quickly clears the rest of Kos-mos' curry off her plate, in a much cleaner fashion than the other. It hadn't come up in conversation before but, unlike Kos-mos, T-elos actually had actually eaten before.  
  
She leaves and goes to the kitchen where she gives her plate and silverware a quick rinse and then plops them into the dishwasher. In that moment T-elos notices someone come into the room and realizes something.  
  
Aside from Kos-mos, Albedo, and maybe Shion, she doesn't know fucking anyone one this ship.  
  
She turns and sees a rather tall woman with light purple hair who looks almost as expressionless and dead inside as Kos-mos. She gives T-elos a quiet 'hello' as she goes to wash her teacup.  
  
 _Kos-mos, who is this?_ _  
_ _  
_ _..._ _  
_ _  
_ _KOS-MOS?_ _  
_ _  
_ _GOD DAMMIT NOW IS NO TIME TO BE SLEEPING!_ _  
_  
"H-Hey..."  
  
She internally cringes at the fact that she let herself stutter, but to T-elos' surprise the woman makes no mention of it and simply finishes her business. She goes to leave once she's done, but turns around just before she gets to the door. "Oh, Mary says she's sorry for bugging you this morning. She doesn't mean any harm, she's just a bit nosy."  
  
Just wanting her to leave already, T-elos does her best impression of Kos-mos, "that is alright... It was not a big deal, all is forgiven."  
  
"Thanks, I'm sure she'll be glad to hear that."   
  
T-elos waits until she's completely sure the woman is out of earshot and then lets out a relieved sigh. Okay, obviously I either need to hang around long enough to learn at least everyone's names sometime... Or I need to stay far away from the other people on this ship... She finds herself leaning way more towards the later, at least for now.  
  
She stalks out of the kitchen and decides it would probably to be smart not to wander around too much. With that in mind she pulls up her scanners and takes note of where everyone in the ship is at.  
  
 _Alright, if I can just take the right hallways I can avoid everyone in here and make it to the lab with time to spare._  
  
For the most part this goes over relatively well, the only time she has to see anyone is when that boy- Alex?- is in the only hallway to the cargo deck. However he pays her almost no notice, aside from simply saying 'hi'.  
  
Finally she reaches the cargo deck. There's a few droids moving some supplies around, occasionally to the lab, but aside from that there doesn't seem to be anyone in the general area. This puts T-elos much more at ease, as she goes and sits herself down at one of the lab's computers.  
  
 __I wonder if these guys have anything I could pass the time with installed on these...  
  
"Hey, you." She gestures to a droid, who's rather startled by this, looking around and checking if there's any other droids around. "Yes, you, come here for a second. I need to ask you something."  
  
The droid rolls over rather slow and nervously, "O- Oh what is it th- That you need miss Kos-mos? I mean... You are such a big deal, you saved the universe, and even amongst us androids you stand out so m- Much. Whatever could you need with a lowly maintenance droid like myse-"  
  
"Listen, that's nice and all, but do you have any games on these?" T-elos cuts them off, pointing at the computer she's sitting at.  
  
"G- Games?"  
  
"Or perhaps a movie, just anything I could pass some time with really." She moves the cursor over some of the files on the computer, most of them seem to be robot or weapon schematics, maintenance programs for Kos-mos, and some oddly named image files she doesn't dare open.  
  
"Well.. I am not sure there would be computer games on these... They are work computers."  
  
"Scott keeps a lot on that one actually," the two androids whip their heads back to see Shion enter, "they're all buried a few folders down in the folder containing erde kaiser's coding. I know because I sometimes see him open them up when the professor's not looking. But you didn't hear that from me."  
  
The maintenance droid quickly takes the opportunity to rush off, completely flustered. T-elos doesn't really fair much better, she simply sits there frozen as Shion pulls a chair right next to her and plops down.  
  
"I was wondering where you went off to," Shion lays on T-elos' arm and looks lovingly at her, "I had to go help Tony with something, but when I got back to the diner you weren't there anymore."  
  
"A- Ah, yes, well I finished all the food you gave me so I didn- did not really have a reason to stay there." T-elos' eyes dark quickly from the floor and then back to Shion again. Every time she looks back at her she can see her own reflection in Shion's glasses, her teal eyes shake with anxiety.  
  
Wait... Fuck.  
  
T-elos quickly ducks her head away from Shion, hoping to hell that she didn't already notice.  
  
"I see... Kos-mos, are you feeling alright?" Shion moves her face closer, trying to get a look at T-elos who quickly turns away.  
  
"N- No actually, I believe I need that recharge more than I originally thought." She quickly stands up wanting to get to the charging station, and ending this conversation, as soon as she can.  
  
"Oh, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have kept you in my room last night." Shion gets up with her, gently grabbing her hand and leading her to the pod. "Tell you what, I'll run a diagnostic and make sure you're not leaking energy or anything while I'm down here. For now you just rest easy."  
  
"Thank you, I will..." T-elos purposefully doesn't look at Shion again as she gets into the pod, her eyes quickly close and as the pod follows suit her senses relax.  
  


* * *

  
  
When T-elos opens her eyes again she finds herself back in hers and Kos-mos' connected subconscious. The flowery field seems slightly blurred and rather than the poking of grass it feels a lot softer, almost like a bed.   
  
Kos-mos lays on the ground next to her, her eyes dart around a bit under her closed lids, likely dreaming. But T-elos finds no interest in her, her nerves are all still shot. She thinks back to her conversation with Shion, she seemed so nice... But still...   
  
"Oh, what's this? A second AI system?"   
  
T-elos wraps her arms around herself as she imagines Shion's voice, it practically feels real. Her finding T-elos' data, the disgusted look on her face, the one single tap on the keyboard as everything is erased.   
  
Her memories, her feelings, the only last proof of her existence...   
  
T-elos hugs herself tighter as her mind races.   
  
_ Will I simply face away? Maybe... Maybe I'll simply be stuck here unable to leave or even walk or talk anymore. Maybe I won't remember anything either. _ __   
  
All she can do now is lay where she is, hugging herself, while she waits…   



	11. The longest day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more like the longest chapter
> 
> Oh jeez so I'm just gonna be honest, I really want to get the meat of the plot for this, but I still had to get through a bit of buildup and fluff, so I just stuffed all I could into this chapter, and cut out anything I thought was unnecessary, so that I can just move on with the next one
> 
> that being said I think you all can tell this story's planned to get kinda long, so hopefully I didn't bite off more than I can chew
> 
> for now just enjoy this chapter

Kos-mos gets up rather quickly this morning, for the most part it seems T-elos did fine last night seeing as she woke up in her charging station like she asked. Scott also doesn't mention anything odd, simply telling her 'good morning' and that the others are in the diner preparing breakfast.  
  
Still, she worries slightly and decides it'd be best to check up on T-elos anyway. Once Scott leaves she tries speaking to T-elos. She calls her name quite a few times, to be answered only by the ambient sounds of machinery within the lab.  
  
"T-ELOS!"  
  
Kos-mos raises her voice calling out, before it hits her that it probably doesn't work like that and T-elos isn't any more likely to hear her. Instead she runs a quick scan over all hers and T-elos' systems, it's the only thing she can think to do to make sure nothing bad happened the other night.  
  
"OH MISS KOS-MOS!"  
  
Kos-mos turns to see one of the ship's maintenance droids rushing in the lab holding a large box. Before she can ask them what they want the droid hurriedly shoves the box into her arms.  
  
"I'm so sorry about last night, I was too overwhelmed to properly help. So I went and found every movie and video game we have on the ship for you!"  
  
Looking down the box seems to be filled to the brim with game and movie cartridges, just as the droid said. She flips one (apparently a racing game) around in her hand, wondering why T-elos would ask for so many of these. "Erm... Thank you, I will have to look these over later." The droid seems to beam with pride as she sets the box down in her pod.  
  
The droid still stays in place, watching her. Kos-mos wonders if T-elos promised them something in exchange for the things they brought her.  
  
A shock of nervousness makes its way through her, she continues staring at the droid while running through her system files. Hoping she can either find record of what T-elos said to them, or that they'll simply say something to her first.  
  
...  
  
"Oh! Well I'd better get going now."  
  
Kos-mos watches them zip out just as quickly as they came in. She... Hopes that means T-elos didn't promise them anything.  
  
It takes just another minute before the system scan is done, every piece of both hard and software seems to be in place. In fact she seems to be running more efficiently then before, a record showed that a small leak in her battery was fixed last night. Even looking over the recording of last night nothing bad seems to have happened, T-elos acted skittish and odd yes, but other than that she didn't get hurt or harassed or anything.  
  
Perhaps I'm just being overly cautious, after all she slept in the other day as well.  
  
She decides that's what she's going to go with for now, and that she should meet up with the others now.  
  


* * *

  
  
Allen sits at a table in the diner with Scott, the two of them go over work related stuff as Allen absentmindedly pokes around at his food. Scott's especially happy and excited about the fact that the professor has been considering working on new A.W.M.S. for everyone now that they no longer have E.S.'s.  
  
"It'd be really useful to have them, especially in some of the more dangerous parts around here."  
  
"Umm... You guys aren't thinking of making them have to...... Combine, are you?"  
  
"No, no. Well... Not to make the base A.M.W.S. anyway."  
  
"Oh my god-"  
  
"LISTEN, it'll be fine! You'll all get to combine together into the limbs of a giant robot, like that one show! Have you seen it Allen?"  
  
The sound of the diner door sliding open disrupts them for a moment, peeking over at the disturbance he sees Kos-mos come in. He actually almost forgot she wasn't here yet, something that just comes with being so quiet he supposes.  
  
Without a word she makes her way over to the table Shion sits at and takes a seat of her own. Allen hears her give Kos-mos a cheery 'good morning' like she always does, before turning his attention back to him and Scott.  
  
"Well she seems to be doing better."  
  
"Hmm," Scott looks back to Allen, "you mean Shion?"  
  
"Yeah, I mean it's only been a few days so maybe it's just a brief high. But it's at least a lot better than the previous ones. I'm hoping that now that things are getting back to normal she won't be as depressed."  
  
"I see... Well either way I'll have to take your word for it, I don't know her too well after all."  
  
Allen simply nods and looks down at his food. He should probably finally just eat it and stop playing with it...  
  
"You seem to care about her a lot."  
  
"Y- Yeah, I don't think she's interested though..."  
  
"Well that's alright, after all, there's other's that ARE interested."  
  
"Um.. I don't know about that. I've been told I don't make a big impression on people, and anyway I don't know that many people so who even-"  Allen stops in the middle of his sentence when he looks up and notices Scott giving him a weird look. He wonders if he said something wrong.  
  
Scott opens his mouth to say something, but stops and shakes his head. "Eh, nevermind. So Shion turned you down when you asked huh?"  
  
"Well um... here's the thing I haven't really..."  
  
"YOU HAVEN'T ASKED HER OUT!?" Tony flings himself over to their table and leans above Scott's chair, Allen tries to motion for him to quiet down but he either doesn't notice or doesn't care. "What the hell dude? Why not?"  
  
"I already said, I'm sure she's not interested-"  
  
"Well in that case you should just let her turn you down." Scott chips in, causing Allen to look at him like he just suggested he throw himself in the ship's engine. "I mean, think about it, at least that way you can say with certainty that she's not interested. It may be easier to get over her that way."  
  
"Yeah! What he said." Allen ponders for a moment, that seems right, and it is about time he starts moving on. Yeah...  
  
"All right!" Allen quickly gets up, his friends putting him in a courage high. "I'll do it, right now!" The two cheer him on as he turns and marches over to Shion's table. He takes a deep breath, looks down toward the floor (he decides he'll lose his courage if he has to make eye contact), and then turns around to speak.  
  
"I- I need to tell you something! I know... I know you already know that I really l- lik... LOVE you, but I think it's time I ask. So that I can be true to my feelings, even if you say no. Will you go out with m-"  
  
Allen finally decides to look up at Shion... Only to realize she's... Not there. She must have left earlier without him noticing because now the only one sitting at the table is Kos-mos, her mouth half full of cereal she was eating. With this the weight of Kos-mos' and everyone else's stares really starts to weigh on Allen.  
  
 _God, why did I say that so loud? Why didn't I look and make sure the Chief was still there? WHY AM I STILL JUST STANDING HERE??? I need to fix this situation somehow. Do I just tell Kos-mos I wasn't talking to her? BUT WHO WOULD I SAY I WAS TALKING TO THEN, THE CHIEF ISN'T HERE-_ _  
_  
"Allen..." Allen jolts as Kos-mos' voice pulls him out of his thoughts, she takes a napkin and wipes her mouth off before speaking. "I am sorry, but you are-" She stops and looks at him funny for a second, trying to find the right worlds. "-not... My type."  
  
"Aha... Okay, that's alright."  
  
"That is not to say that you are unnattractive-"  
  
"Okay, Kos-mos..."  
  
"-Although, granted, I do not find you attractive-"  
  
"Okay......"  
  
"-But that is not to say no one will find you attractive. I mean statistically-"  
  
Oh my god, please, I just want to go. "Okay it's fine, I'm just gonna go now-"  
  
"No, hold on Allen, I think you should hear this." Kos-mos grabs him by the shoulder and yanks him down into the seat next to her. "You see between the total population of the federation government, the miltian alliance, and even the outer republic-"  
  
Allen tries to wriggle away from her, but Kos-mos has too strong a grip on his shoulder. _Please help..._  
  
"-Are you listening Allen? By law of large numbers there must at least be someone- likely 50 to 225 people- who does indeed find you attractive."  
  


* * *

  
  
Shion slips out of the bathroom and back towards the diner, all the while going over a mental list of what she needs to do today so she doesn't forget. Make sure Kos-mos is doing better, confirm the new A.W.M.S. designs with the professor, fix Jr's Playstation X 25, help clean the girls room, lament on what a busy day she's going to have...  
  
She was going to pull Kos-mos aside for a check up after she got back, but when she walks back in she finds that Allen is now sitting next to Kos-mos as she appears to be giving him a lecture of some sort. One look at Allen banging his head on the table and Shion decides whatever their conversation is about it's not worth getting into.   
  
Instead Shion slips past them and heads over to where Jr and Shelley sit.  
  
I'll just see if I can find out what's wrong with Jr's game while I wait for those two.  
  
"Hmm, oh hey Shion." Jr greets her as she takes a seat across from him.  
  
"Hey Jr, if you've got a minute would you mind telling me what exactly is acting up with that console. I'll probably be able to fix it by tonight."  
  
"Uh, okay. Didn't you have other things you needed to take care of first though?"  
  
"Well, number one on my list currently seems to be a bit..." She glances back over at Kos-mos who has started pushing her face really close to Allen in an attempt to get him to pay closer attention to her as she continues lecturing him. "...Occupied."  
  
"Hmm, number one on your list in WHAT sense?" Shelley quips in a rather suggestive tone, causing Shion to reel.  
  
"Shelley Godwin, did I just catch a hint of your sister in your tone there?" Shelley scoffs, only making Shion laugh at her. "Anyway I just need to give her a brief looking over to make sure the maintenance I ran on her last night went well. Anything else will have to wait until my schedule's not so jam packed."  
  
"Anything else, huh?" Jr decided to join in on teasing Shion.  
  
"Yeah, I mean talking, cuddling... I dunno, it's been a while since I've done couple things-"  
  
"WAIT, HOLD ON!" Jr cuts her off, "you mean you two actually are dating?"  
  
Shion blinks, looking at Jr a little confused. _Oh... Perhaps I misread the situation a little bit._ "Y- Yeah, I thought you guys already found out and that's why you were giving me shit about it."  
  
"Yeah, me and Mary figured as much-"  
  
"I DIDN'T KNOW!"  
  
"-at any rate I'm guessing this is a pretty recent development, so congratulations."  
  
"Thanks, I'm sure Kos-mos won't mind me telling you, I think she was just being shy the other day."  
  
"Wait, hold on Shion. You can't just go on with this like nothing's up."  
  
"I... Can't?"  
  
"No, you're supposed to make an announcement to all your friends when you hook up with someone!"  
  
"I'm pretty sure I never did that when I got with Kevin..."  
  
"Oh hold on, I'll set something up for you guys!" And then, before she can even argue, Jr zips right out of the diner.  
  
"Erm, sorry about the little master, I believe he's been watching too many sitcoms lately." Shelley simply watches Jr rush out, she's given up any attempt at stopping his schemes long, long, ago.  
  
"Well, that's fine I guess, I mean I didn't plan to make a big deal out of this but... OH WAIT!" Shion covers her face with her hands realizing she forgot something important. "I never got that game system from him." She lets out an annoyed sigh, Shelley gently placing a hand on her shoulder.  
  
 _This is going to be a long day, I can already tell._  
  


* * *

 

  
Kos-mos ends up talking to Allen a lot longer than she intended, long after everyone else already left. She wanted that conversation to make him feel better, but no matter what she did Allen only seemed to feel worse, and every attempt she made to fix it went nowhere. After a while she simply lets him go and accepts that she's just no good at comforting people.  
 _  
_ _I am not sure how I ever managed to help Shion, she thinks to herself as she slips out of the diner, I suppose she's just very different from Allen. But also I don't think I could hug Allen, that would just be weird..._ _  
_  
Kos-mos stops in the middle of walking, almost as though she's expecting something. _Do you have nothing to add?_  
  
...  
  
 _Jr and Albedo are not here right now, and you seemed to do just fine last night, so why are you doing this right now._ _  
_  
...........  
  
She sighs, _I cannot even comfort another android, and one that literally cannot leave me at that._ Kos-mos shakes her head and begins walking again, _perhaps I'm just no good with others. That's at least comforting in some sense, that way it feels a bit more like an actual human personality trait and less like I'm too much of an emotionless machine to understand people._ _  
_  
Not entirely sure where she's trying to go Kos-mos just ends up back in the lab, which has become quite the mess. Tons of papers which all seemed to depict various A.M.W.S. blueprints are scattered around the floor, some larger half torn blueprints for a robot that was distinctively designed by the professor are sprawled across one of the computer desks, and someone seems to have pulled out a whiteboard and drawn a smiling robot on it along with the word "friendship".  
  
Kos-mos notices Shion sitting at one of the desks fiddling with her comm device. "I am guessing designing the new A.M.W.S. didn't go over too well."  
  
"Oh gee, what gave you that idea?" Shion says in a joking sarcastic tone as Kos-mos takes a seat next to her. "Of course Jr isn't picking up. Oh well if he really wants that game fixed he can come bring it to me himself." Shion tosses the device onto the table and turns her attention to Kos-mos. "At least you're here now, how are you feeling? You were acting pretty goofy last night."  
  
"My energy efficiency is up quite a bit, one of the updates you ran also improved my general system speed a good bit, aside from that my OS-"  
  
Shion cuts her off by placing an arm on her shoulder, "Kos-mos I'm glad you're physically feeling well, really I am, but also that's not what I meant."  
  
"Oh, I see. Well most of today I have felt... Default... Emotion. Is there a word for that?" Shion simply shrugs and hums unsure of the answer. "Right now though I am feeling pretty happy that I am with you."  
  
"Aww, you stop that." Shion smiles and playfully shoves her, "well I'm glad you're feeling better. Do you mind if I ask you one more thing though?"  
  
"Of course, anything you want."  
  
"What happened to Mary after we left Michtam? Are you like the same person? Are you different? Is she still there even?"  
  
"I am... Not entirely sure." Kos-mos pauses and stares down at the floor for a moment, trying to figure out a good way to word her explanation. "I think Me and Mary come from the same place and were the exact same at some point, but after a while we became different."  
  
Shion nods, "okay, that makes sense I think. But is she still around?"  
  
Kos-mos shifts her eyes from the floor back to Shion, subconsciously tilting her head in curiosity. "Why do you want to know?"  
  
"Oh, well... this is going to sound silly, but I thought I saw her last night. I caught a glance of your eyes and well... They didn't look like yours."  
  
Kos-mos blinks, coming to a realization. _Of course, T-elos has blue eyes. I should have thought that they'd change, after all they always did when Mary took control._ She frowns and feels a slight blush take over her face, _what is wrong with me lately, why do I keep making logistic errors like this?_ _  
_  
"Uh, Kos-mos?"  
  
Kos-mos snaps back to attention with that, she shakes her head quickly before answering Shion. "I am not entirely sure yet, but I don't think that Mary is still around right now. Perhaps your eyes were just playing tricks on you?" Kos-mos hadn't lied to Shion before now, and she can now safely say that she hates doing it.  
  
 _I know you likely won't answer, but you had better appreciate what i am doing for you._ _  
_  
"Yeah, you're probably right... Anyway, as long as you're doing better I guess it doesn't really matter." Shion leans on Kos-mos, putting her head on the other girl's shoulder. The tenseness Kos-mos didn't know she had leaves her body as she leans her own head on Shion's. "Oh boy," she sighs, "I've got quite a lot of cleaning to do now..."  
  
"You're not their maid you know," Kos-mos looks over the dirty room as she speaks. "The professor and Scott made this mess, yes? I'll make sure they are the ones to clean it."  
  
Shion smiles up at her, "thank you Kos-mos, I appreciate you looking out for me." The two of them sit quietly together for a while just enjoying each other's company, before Shion speaks up again. "Oh hey, Kos-mos?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Tony said that if he's quick we could make it back to the Dämmerung by tonight, so I was thinking maybe when we get there we could find you some more comfortable clothes and you could sleep with me again." Shion blushes bashfully after finishing that sentence. "I mean... If you want to that is. I just felt bad because last time you fell asleep in that clunky armor."  
  
"I think I would like that actually." Kos-mos reaches her arm over to hold Shion.  
  
"I do have to help clean the girls room first though."  
  
"How unfortunate for you."  
  
"Hey, what happened to making sure I'm the one doing the cleaning?"  
  
"Technically part of that mess is yours."  
  
"True... But I also distinctly remember you knocking some of those things onto the floor."  
  
...  
  
"Perhaps we could stay in a room on the Dämmerung for the night."  
  


* * *

  
  
  
A particularly excited girl paces around in the cargo bay of the giant vector ship. She's been there since early that morning, despite being told that the other's won't arrive until late that night at best and almost 3 days later at worst. But it seems like she's lucky tonight.  
  
"Attention, the cargo ship Elsa is now within range and preparing to board. All maintenance staff are to clear the air lock and prepare the private docking bay."  
  
"Oh!" She's brought back to reality by the sound of the ship's overhead speakers, "they're here! Finally, they're here! I'm gonna be the first to welcome- WAIT SHIT WHICH SECTION OF THE DOCKING BAY ARE THEY GOING TO!? Oh jeez why didn't I check this before?"  
  


* * *

  
  
After a particularly long day the Elsa finally reaches the Dämmerung, at almost midnight. Shion looks over everyone in the bridge, most everyone seems pretty tired and, she imagines, pretty relieved that they finally made it.   
  
Finally the airlock finishes pressurizing and the gate opens letting them through to the dock. From out the front window Shion notices Juli Mizrahi waiting on the dock for them. She smiles and makes her way to the ship's exit so she can go greet her.   
  
"Juli, it's good to see you again. It's been quite some time."   
  
"It certainly has, it's good to see the rest of you as well-" Juli looks behind Shion to see the Allen and Jr leave, but is caught off guard when she notices Kos-mos there as well. Kos-mos, upon realizing Juli is staring at her, awkwardly tries to back up back into the ship only to run into Chaos. The later of whom Juli is now also staring at, bewildered.   
  
"Erm, it's a long story but we picked up some old friends again." Jr says, "I'll explain later, but for now it's good to see ya again doc. Where's-"   
  
"JR!!!" Momo comes running through the cargo bay and slows down just before coming up to Jr so that she can give him a hug. "It's been so long since I saw you guys, and- Oh! Chaos! Kos-mos! you're both okay too!"  She gets more excited as she sees the two of them, her excitement rubbing off on Jr until he's fully awake and laughing with her.   
  
Shion here's some heavy footsteps and notices Ziggy following slowly behind, she cheerily greets him as well. "It is nice to see you all got back safely." His response is a lot less enthusiastic as Momo's, but Shion gets the feeling he's still pretty happy to see them. After paying so close attention to the any little quirks or hints of emotion from Kos-mos she's gotten quite good at reading people. "Someone else is coming to see you too."   
  
Soon after he says that Shion hears some barking and the clicking of claws against the hard floor. "ALBY!" Momo pulls away from Jr so that the speeding animal can get to him. He hops up and all around Jr licking at him furiously.   
  
Shion laughs cheerily at Jr, "well do we have any one else who wants to join the party or is that it?"   
  
"SHION!!!" Shion perks up as she hears a familiar voice shout from... Somewhere. She looks all around but doesn't see where it came from, it sounded at least somewhat close though.   
  
Allen takes this chance to move far away from Shion, learning his lesson from last time. He now stands by the front of the ship, close to the main hall. He figures that should be far enough-   
  
"SHION!"   
  
"OH COME ON- GAH!"   
  
Miyuki suddenly comes running like a bat out of hell from the main hall, shoving Allen to the ground on the way.   
  
Miyuki runs right for Shion much like Momo did when she ran to hug Jr. But unlike Momo, Miyuki doesn't slow down... At all.   
  
"MIYUKI HOLD ON-" Shion does her best to brace herself but is knocked onto her ass by the speeding girl. This doesn't stop Miyuki from giving Shion a crushing hug and cuddling right up to her, though.   
  
"OH MY GOSH, Shion it's been waaaaaaay too long! I don't think I've EVER had to go so long without seeing you or being able to text or video chat you or anything." Miyuki pulls her face away and Shion notices she looks like she's about to cry, she's still got a huge smile on her face, but still.   
  
She hears a clacking of footsteps beside her as Kos-mos comes up to the two of them, "are you alright?"   
  
Miyuki's eyes grow immensely in size when she hears Kos-mos' voice. "HOLY SHIT!" Suddenly she hops off Shion and up to tackle Kos-mos into a hug instead, almost knocking the android down as well. "I can't believe you're here too, Kos-mos! I thought you died in space!"   
  
"Well, I got better." Kos-mos mumbles as she lightly wraps her arms around Miyuki. After getting her fill of hugs Miyuki pulls away from Kos-mos, still holding her by the shoulders.   
  
"AA I know Shion said she'd find you again, but I'm still just so... SURPRISED! I can't wait to show you guys the new weapons I've gotten ideas for, oh, and I pieced your tertiary weapons system back together just in case we ever needed it. And Shion you were right, I DID develop an allergy to apples. So I decided to try this new thing, ohhhh we have so much to catch up on-"   
  
"Whoa, whoa, slow down Miyuki. You do know we're only staying for about a day or so right?" Shion does her best to slow down the girl's wild rambling.   
  
"Oh of course, don't worry one bit." Miyuki waves her off, "as soon as I got word that you guys were heading back for recon I immediately started packing my stuff."   
  
"Packing?"   
  
"YES!" Miyuki then grabs Shion's shoulders, "listen, Shion, staying back here was the worst decision. In addition to missing you, I was bored out of my mind. I mean I could've tried helping Juli and Momo develop their new form of transportation, but you know theoretical physics was my worst subject."   
  
Shion decides to think on this a bit... Last time Miyuki wanted to help she blew her off, but since then she'd been nothing but helpful, and it seems she's still completely enthusiastic about coming along with her and the others.   
  
_ I do sometimes get the feeling I never appreciated her help as much as I could have... Maybe it's time to start making up for that. _ _   
_   
Shion smiles and nods, "alright, I understand. I'm glad you'll be coming with us, it'll be nice to get to spend time with you again." Shion's smile fades a little as she watches Miyuki break out into full on tears.   
  
"Shioooon."   
  
"Oh gee... Come on Miyuki, we still need to get settled in for the night, and I promised Kos-mos I'd buy her something more comfortable to sleep in."   
  
Miyuki perks up, quickly wiping her tears away and pulling herself together. "A- Alright, I got just the thing for both those things." She grabs Shion's hand with one of her own, and then Kos-mos' with the other then drags them off. " Follow me!"   
  
As they run off Shion swears she sees Jr give them a particularly mischievous look, but she isn't able to dwell on it before they're too far away from him.   



	12. Requiem of the fallen angel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lotta nothing kinda happens again in this chapter, but we're getting there I promise, this setup has at least some significance
> 
> (also there hopefully won't be such a huge break before the next chapter, I can't make any promises because my writing inspiration seems to come and go so erratically but,, let's hope my mind cuts me some slack)

_A lone woman stands in an altar, masked figures surround her, their muffled words are nothing but noise to her. Their words are meaningless, their goals are meaningless, there is only one that matters to her._ _  
_ _  
_ _To bring meaning to his words, to become the goal he desires, that is her only purpose in this world._ _  
_ _  
_ _She holds her hand to her chest, feeling the soft beating of a heart that isn’t her own._ _  
_ _  
_ _Why though?_ _  
_ _  
_ _Why was this her purpose?_ _  
_ _  
_ _Why find comfort in something so pointless?_ _  
_ _  
_ _Why..._ __  
  


* * *

  
  
Kos-mos stands by the entrance of the lab, her eyes occupied watching her friends skitter about in and out of the cargo bay loading and unloading various boxes of equipment. She waits and watches until she hears the person she was waiting for casually stroll up.  
  
"Hello there, Kos-mos." Chaos greets her with a smile.  
  
"Good morning, Chaos. If you're not busy, I would like to steal a moment of your time."  
  
"Oh? Well I'm not doing anything right now, what is it you need?" Kos-mos motions her head towards the lab, letting Chaos step inside before she follows. Chaos looks a bit puzzled as Kos-mos closes the lab door but still keeps the casual smile on his face. “Something personal you need to talk about?”  
  
”Somewhat... Chaos, would you be able to help me speak with T-elos again?”  
  
”Oh, yeah I might be able to help you concentrate enough to get to her again. I take it our new friend has still been a bit quiet?”  
  
Kos-mos frowns at the word ‘friend’, does T-elos technically count as a friend at all? She’s likely only still around because the two of them are stuck together. She shakes the thought of and decides not to focus on it, however.  
  
”She actually had been talking more, up until approximately 32 hours ago that is. I haven't heard a word from her since then.”  
  
”I see, so that’s why you’re worried about her.” Chaos nods, looking thoughtful for a moment before motioning Kos-mos to sit down. “Alright, I’ll help you reach her, but I think I should stay here. After all you know her better than I do at this point, and someone needs to keep an eye on you.”  
  
Self doubt creeps it’s way into her, she hadn’t done a great job with comforting thus far and Chaos was much easier to talk to than Kos-mos imagined she was. But... “Alright, I will try my best.”  
  
Chaos smiles reassuringly an he places his hand on her forehead. “Okay, close your eyes and relax.”  
  
Kos-mos does as he says, surprised by how quickly and easily she’s able to calm her senses. It’s not something she’s able scan, but she assumes it must be whatever Chaos is doing that is helping her along.  
  
For a brief moment she feels as though she’s floating as her body seems to slip away from her.  
  


* * *

  
  
Feeling returns to Kos-mos, for a moment she worries that she woke back up but as she opens her eyes she's greeted to a familiar scene. The grassy flower dappled fields somehow seems more lonely than usual, Kos-mos' gaze darts from side to side looking for T-elos. Finally she spots the other girl sat in the grass a short distance away from her.  
  
A soft silent breeze brushes past Kos-mos as she strides towards T-elos, she stops and stares as the other girl's hair is whipped up by the wind. She can't seem to find the words she wanted so say now that she's standing here, so instead she silently takes a seat next to T-elos.  
  
Kos-mos looks T-elos over, she's hugging her legs with her face buried in her lap. She seems upset, but at the same time oddly... Distant.  
  
"T-elos?" Kos-mos finally manages to find her voice. "Are- Are you alright?"  
  
The silence while she waits for T-elos to respond is suffocating, each moment she feels as though she should say something else, but she doesn't quite know what else to say. T-elos does, however, eventually mumble a response. "I don't know.... I don't know if I- If I want to know..."  
  
"What do you mean?" Kos-mos leans a bit closer to T-elos, trying to get a look at her face. "Did something happen? I looked through my memory banks of the other day but it seems that nothing out of the ordinary happened."  
  
Not 10 seconds after the words leave her mouth and Kos-mos realizes that was not the right word choice. T-elos tightly balls her hands into fists, and her expression is dark as she finally lifts her head from her legs. "You just don't understand! You stupid machine! I'm not just one of you're little posse of pals! I tried to kill you, I was a testament! What do you think that girlfriend of yours will do when she notices I'm still around, assuming she didn't already!? She'll get rid of me! That's what!"  
  
Kos-mos frowns, she's not entirely sure how she feels- or how she's supposed to feel- but... "You are mistaken T-elos."  
  
T-elos glares at her again. "What-"  
  
"Shion does not like to go through any of my OS files unless they specifically require maintenance." Kos-mos cuts her off, droning on in her usual robotic tone without a care as to what the other girl has to object. "While she may have noticed something was off the other night, the only maintenance she did was on my battery system. Anything else was simply an automated update. And secondly if Shion were to notice you I would not simply let her delete you."  
  
T-elos' expression shifts to one of confusion at hearing her argument, she can only repeat her earlier reaction. "Wh- What-"  
  
"You're only worried about your own self preservation, right? I do not think there is anything wrong with that, nor do I think anyone would be particularly opposed to giving you another chance. After all, we kept Albedo, did we not?"  
  
Again the girl's expression shifts to something more melancholy, her gaze becomes fixated on a spot on the ground between the two of them and for a while there is only the sound of the wind as Kos-mos waits for T-elos to say something. "I- You-" T-elos sighs and works to collect herself. "You know, for a logic driven machine you sure are a dumbass."  
  
"Apologies, next time I will give you the exact percentages regarding how wrong you are."  
  
T-elos lets out a short airy chuckle. "Thanks, that helps so much."  
  
Kos-mos lets a smile of her own creep onto her face, it's only there for a brief moment but T-elos notices it before bashfully snapping her gaze back to the ground. "T-elos, I believe you should reveal yourself to the others sooner rather than later. They likely won't take it as well if we keep quiet for too long."  
  
"I... Okay, I suppose you're right. Just..." T-elos looks off to the side for a moment, lost in thought. Finally she shakes her head and continues. "Just give me a day or two to think. I just... Don't really know what to say yet."  
  
Kos-mos nods, "I understand. Simply let me know when you're ready." An odd sensation passes through Kos-mos and the dreamscape world around her seems to get a little duller, she takes that as a sign that she's waking up. "I think I need to go now, we will talk again later."  
  
As the world grows dark Kos-mos just catches the faintest glance of a soft smile from T-elos.  
  


* * *

  
  
Kos-mos' eyes flit open, the first thing coming into focus being Chaos who's now sitting a tad bit further away from her, and the second thing being the sound of Miyuki's voice.   
  
"-I'll come help in a minute, don't be a wimp Allen! I just need to- Oh! There you are!" Miyuki, who was yelling out the door a moment ago, cheerfully makes her way over to Kos-mos as soon as she notices her. She has a few medium sized boxes in her arms which seem to be a bit heavy based on the resounding 'thud once she drops them next to the android.   
  
"Good morning, Miyuki, did you need Kos-mos for something?"   
  
"Hey, Chaos, you can stick around if you want. I don't think we've really gotten a chance to talk before now anyway." Chaos frowns and seems to look lost in thought as Miyuki moves to open one of the boxes.   
  
"Have we really never talked before now?"   
  
"Not really, I mean we haven't really had a chance with me being stuck at work while you guys all go out and on your own adventure." Kos-mos can't tell if she's being salty with that last part, but isn't able to question it before Miyuki excitedly starts waving a few mechanical parts from the box in front of her face. "Anyway, I just thought we should hook this back up to you before we take off again!"   
  
Kos-mos, after backing up a bit, quickly recognizes the wing like metal appendage. "Oh, so I see you were not kidding about fixing the tertiary weapons system."   
  
"Of course not! I'm very serious about my weapons engineering, you know that. Now turn around."   
  
"Should we not do this at my maintenance bed?" Kos-mos asks but still compiles and turns around in her chair anyway, leaning forward against the backrest.   
  
"Naw, with all the upgrades to both you and the weapon system it should be no problem. I hate working that thing anyway." Kos-mos can't help but think about how typical of Miyuki this is as she opens up a few small panels along her back. Even back at vector the girl would almost never go by the book if she thought she could do something easier, or lazier depending on how one looked at it.   
  
"Are you sure you got that? It all looks very complex, and you seem a little... Tangled."   
  
Miyuki does seem to be struggling a bit, plugging in one cord then taking a very long pause before the next. "No, it's fine, really. It's just been a while since I've done this."   
  
"If you cannot remember where some of them go you should get Shion."   
  
"No, no it's fine, I remember I swear."   
  
"Hold on, are you sure that goes there?" Kos-mos shifts uncomfortably as Chaos is now also prodding at the wires on her back.   
  
"What? No it definitely- Oh, no wait, you're right this one goes over here-"   
  
"Will one of you just go get Shion."   
  
"No, it's fine, just relax Kos-mos, we're almost done."   
  
"You still have to do the right one after this."   
  
"Okay, so we're halfway done-"   
  


* * *

  
  
  
Eventually the Elsa is all stocked up and ready to go, Shion gives Miyuki a bit of an earful for not equipping Kos-mos the proper way but decides to let it go pretty quickly so she can help get her set up in the girls room. Kos-mos and Miyuki trail behind her as she heads in the room, going in Shion notices Momo already setting her stuff up at the bed she usually uses.   
  
"Hi guys!" Momo smiles and cheerfully greets the three of them, but frowns as she looks around the room. "Ah! I forgot Miyuki was coming, I don't know where there's room for you."   
  
"Oh don't worry, I know where I can sleep." Miyuki drops her suitcase of stuff next to Shion's bed and hops right on it, laying propped up against the backrest with her legs crossed.   
  
"Miyuki!" Shion puts her hands on her hips as she playfully scolds Miyuki, Momo chuckling a bit at her shenanigans.   
  
"What? There's still room for you."   
  
As Miyuki says that Kos-mos climbs into bed next to her, taking up the other half. "Now there's not."   
  
Shion laughs with Momo, shaking her head lightly. Shion was admittedly a little worried there'd be some jealousy between them with Miyuki being... Well, Miyuki. But seeing the two of them smooshed together on her bed joking with each other eases her worries.   
  
"Well I'm okay with that as a temporary solution so Mary and Shelly don't have to share."   
  
"Temporary? Are you implying you don't want to sleep with me?"   
  
"You may sleep with me, Miyuki. I know how much you love my maintenance bed."   
  
"NO!" Miyuki shoves Kos-mos, "That'd be horrible, I'd have to lay on top of you just to fit!"   
  
"Are you implying you don't want to lay on me?"   
  
"Shion! Why did you program Kos-mos to be such of a smartass!"   
  
"Hey don't blame me, she picked that up on her own." Kos-mos opens her mouth like she's going to say something, but quickly snaps it back shut as through second guessing her comeback. Shion looks at her confused, but isn't able to question it as the captain's voice comes on over the intercom.   
  
"Hey, Kos-mos, get up here!"   
  
Shion frowns wondering what the captain could need Kos-mos for, watching Kos-mos get up and make her way out she decides to follow after her. "Here, I'll come with you." Hearing this Kos-mos slows down a bit so Shion can catch up. When they get to the bridge Matthew motions Kos-mos over with a smug look that makes Shion dread he's come up with some unsafe 'plan' he needs her for.   
  
"Ah good, so listen, you're pretty tough right?"   
  
Shion frowns, her worry being all but confirmed with that question. "Hold on now, just what are you planning?"   
  
”What, I’m not ‘planning’ anything. I just think it’d be a little bit faster if we don’t have to tiptoe around those brutes from last time-“   
  
Hammer and Tony both shake their heads at the captain, seeing Shion’s rage coming far in advance. But they’re a bit too late.   
  
”EXCUSE ME!? I am not strapping Kos-mos to the outside of this ship and putting her in danger just so you can take a shortcut!” Matthews winces, feeling a bit guilty when she puts it that way. Shion thinks he’s about to apologize but before he can Kos-mos speaks up.   
  
”It is really no problem, Shion.”   
  
Shion whips around yo look at her, Kos-mos of course always had a habit of putting herself in dangerous situations but Shion had hoped she would be more careful from now on. “But...”   
  
“While I do not know too much about this new enemy you ran into, it should be no trouble for me to handle. Looking at the reports from the attack it seems they just have standard fighter ships.”   
  
Shion frowns as the crew glances between her and Kos-mos uncomfortably. “Kos-mos are you listening to yourself, you don’t even know your chances of winning this time."   
  
"I do, it's an estimated 76.58% chance of victory. I simply thought you did not care much for the statistics, they never appeared to assure you before."   
  
"Well no, but..."   
  
"Do you want me to go back to listing off all statistics within a situation?"   
  
"No, that's not..."   
  
"Are you worried I am putting myself at risk without a second thought?"   
  
"..."   
  
"Shion..." Kos-mos reaches her arms around Shion, pulling her into a hug. Shion's face flushes as Kos-mos speaks softly into her ear. "Please don't worry, I don't plan on leaving you ever again."   
  
Shion feels her whole face heat up, although it's just a simple reassurance it almost feels wrong to have the others there watching. It's possibly one of the most emotionally intimate moments she's had with Kos-mos thus far. After a minute Kos-mos breaks the hug, while still holding Shion's shoulders, and faces the captain. "Please alert me when we are within their territory, and keep in mind that we are to turn around and go the long way at the first sign of the battle turning against us."   
  
Matthews is somewhat off put at how quickly Kos-mos' tone changes from something soft and comforting right back to giving orders in her usual monotone way. It makes him answer with a quick curt nod rather than an argument.   
  
Shion places a hand over the one Kos-mos has resting on her left shoulder, she's a little reassured by Kos-mos' words, but still can't help but worry. Flattering as it is she hates the thought that Kos-mos puts her life way above her own.   
_   
_ __ Please just stay safe, Kos-mos... I don't know if I can handle losing you again...   



	13. putting the worst plan into action

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally gonna be a bit longer, but I reached an okay stopping point anyway and I figured a couple quick short updates would be better than one giant update 5 months later
> 
> also, I'm gonna try and make refs for all the character's designs in this story, I'll link em in the chapter notes as I go, but here's Kos-mos' http://nekosmos.tumblr.com/post/173409382436/wanted-an-official-kosmos-ref-for-in-search-for
> 
> also also, I've uploaded this on ff.net as well if you'd prefer to read there, my username is TheJadePhoenixx

Kos-mos stands on top of the elsa, visor covering her face and tertiary weapons system armed. Her hair trails behind her, moved not by wind, but the force of the ship travelling forwards. The feeling of being out in the void of space is not necessarily a comfortable one, and it only makes her more antsy to begin the fight. Shion's concern from earlier still lingers a bit in the back of her mind, as well as a short conversation they had before Kos-mos left the ship.

 

_Shion quickly runs after Kos-mos, who went to leave as soon as she was positive the tertiary weapons system was online and ready to use. Shion grabs Kos-mos wrist, keeping a tight grip on it as she speaks. "Wait, Kos-mos, I know you said you can do this but I..."_

 

_Kos-mos frowns, she's already ran the numbers and is very certain she'll come out on top. And yet percentages mean so little to humans like Shion it's almost pointless to list the numbers off to her. "Shion... I have already promised that I will come back, have I not?"_

 

_"I know... I know you have, I just..." Shion pauses for a moment before letting out a frustrated sigh. "I just feel like this is such a pointless and stupid idea. But I don't know, maybe I'm the one being stupid by worrying so much."_

 

_Kos-mos moves her wrist from Shion's grip, only so she can grab Shion's hand with her own, entwining their fingers. "Perhaps you're concern is illogical, but it actually feels quite... Nice, to know that you care."_

 

_"Well..." Shion finally starts smiling, tightly gripping Kos-mos' hand in her own. "If there's one thing I've gotten good over these past months at it's worrying about you."_

 

_Kos-mos feels her inner systems heat up slightly and, after confirming that no one else is around, she gently grabs the side of Shion's face and tilts it up towards her own, giving her a kiss. It's different than their earlier ones, Kos-mos especially finds herself a lot more used to the feeling and actually moves her own lips with Shion's this time._

 

_Kos-mos steals a look at Shion's face as they break the kiss, worry still lingers on her flushed face, but it seems much more subdued now. She waits for Shion to speak again, wanting to make sure she's completely eased the girl's worries._

 

_Shion looks down at their interlocked hands, giving her a small squeeze as she finally speaks up. "I... I love you Kos-mos... So please.... Promise me you won't do anything foolish."_

 

 _Kos-mos feels the heat intensify at her words, love is something Shion is much more familiar with than she is. She understands the meaning of the word just fine, it's surprisingly not that hard a concept for her to grasp, and yet she's not entirely sure how one is supposed to tell when they_ **_feel_ ** _love. Not wanting to say something potentially untruthful to her she simply promises what she can._

 

_"I promise, I will not get hurt. And before you know it I will be back in here with you, and this will simply be another story to tell."_

 

Kos-mos is certain that she can take anything they have to throw at her and yet...

 

She shakes her head, as if to shake away her thoughts. _I cannot have doubts now, doubts will get me killed._ She tries to put herself back into her usual state of thinking only of logistics. Emotion can wait till later, emotion can wait till after she comes back. For now she has to worry only about the fight.

 

With her mind cleared she turns her attention back forward, while there are still no ships to be seen her scanner picks up a hint of something up ahead. It appears to be a type of radio wave, one produced by a communication device.

 

The wings of the tertiary weapons system roar to life as she prepares herself.

 

_Destroy the enemy quickly, efficiently, and without distraction. Then I can return to her..._

 

* * *

 

 

It’s only a matter of time until the enemy forces notice the elsa and are after them. Before the fighter ships are even within range of the elsa Kos-mos fires a blast from the tertiary weapons system. It cleaves clean through one of the fighter ships and burns up a wing of another.

 

While waiting for the system to recharge some of the remaining fighter ships catch up, forcing her to fly away from the elsa to dodge some energy bullets.

 

The elsa’s turrets make quick work of the ships, however a few more show up to take their place. Taking advantage of already being in the air Kos-mos fluidly summons F-scythe, slices one of the ships in half with the beam blade, and then stores it again as she darts to the side avoiding another barrage of bullets.

 

The ships fall off her scanner as the elsa destroys them, with a moment to breath and her phase transfer cannon fully recharged she takes the opportunity to land back on the elsa. The magnets in her heels activate, keeping her from falling off the still accelerating ship.

 

 _So far so good… Now for the hard part_.

 

Kos-mos turns around so that she’s facing the back end of the ship, waiting for the next target to come within range. Not wanting to risk missing her one shot she switches out the phase transfer cannon and activates X-buster.

 

As soon as the scavenger ship is within range of her scanner Kos-mos is quick to fire X-buster. It seems she only gets a small hit on the ship as it moves to avoid the barrage of beams, however she does her part in steering it away from the elsa and with the damage she doubts it will be back to grab them anytime soon.

 

“We’re almost there!” She hears Matthews’ voice shout through her headset.

 

Kos-mos doesn’t allow herself to celebrate yet, however, as she takes the air again and prepares to fight off the next wake of fighter ships. Dodging bullets, slashing with F-scythe, firing her phase transfer cannon as soon as it recharges, maneuvering-

 

Kos-mos’ left wing suddenly takes a hit as a fighter ship rams her while she’s distracted fighting the others. Her left hand reaches out and there’s a horrid metallic tear as her nails dig into the body of the ship. She holds on tightly as she allows the ship to fly for her while her wing repairs itself.

 

The ship tries it’s hardest to shake her off, but she refuses to let go. As soon as she’s informed that her wing is repaired Kos-mos raises her right arm, transforming it into R-blade as she stabs into the ship’s engine.

 

Flying away from the resulting explosion Kos-mos realizes that while on the other ship she’s fallen a good deal behind the elsa. She feels anger and frustration bubbling up in her as she pushes her wings to their limits to try and catch up with the elsa. It’s become very easy to get frustrated lately, a bad habit she imagines she picked up from T-elos-

 

She shakes her head. _No I cannot think right now, I know this._

 

Clearing her head again she allows her ‘instinct’ to take back over. Battle algorithms and Ai working overtime calculating out move after move, and rewriting entire plans with each slight change to the battlefield.

 

Time seems to lose all meaning as she fights, and before she knows it her scanners inform her that they’re reaching the end of the radio wave’s radius.

 

 _That was easier than expected…_ She feels a bit wrong letting her guard down now, so rather than making her way to the hanger she lands back on top of the elsa, scouting the area.

 

“-told you that it’d be fine.” Matthews’ voice sounds in her headset again as she opens communication with the ship.

 

“We do seem to be out of their range, however we should continue to watch for any stragglers.” Kos-mos adds her own point to the noise of the crew. Sure enough soon after she picks up on some more fighter ships, way more than she expected to be way out here at that.

 

Kos-mos fires a blast at the ships but only manages to hit a few, as they seem to have gotten used to dodging her shots. _They are likely Ai controlled, humans could not have reacted that quickly._

 

Their strategies seem to get more aggressive as Kos-mos is forced off the ship, barely able to hid any of the ships as they all fire at and try to ram her. Yet again her emotion module burns with frustration. This time, however,  she tries to work with it.

 

Two can play at this. She speeds up and, with wings outstretched, allows the energy from her wing to slice through one of the ships. Not being a condensed as a plasma blade it doesn’t cut as clean or deep as one, but it’s more than enough the disable the ship. As it spins out of control it runs into another ship, causing the two of them to explode.

 

_We cannot keep going like this, no matter how many we take out there are more to take their place._

 

“Captain, we are close to Lost Jerusalem correct? Once we reach it, you need to immediately enter its atmosphere.” If she was right these smaller ships would have a hard time entering the atmosphere on their own. Typically fighter ships of this class weren’t made to be durable and needed to be transferred planet to planet in larger freight ships.

 

The captain seems somewhat hesitant but agrees, and as soon as the planet is within sight they begin to slow a bit as they cruise down toward the planet. Not having any time to get back into the elsa Kos-mos flies forward and tucks herself agains the ship close to the back trying to protect herself from the heat of reentry as much as she can. Her wings fold over the top of her trying to divert any potential damage to her less vital systems.

 

Kos-mos’ confidence in the situation grows as most of the ships are destroyed and all few remaining ships sustain heavy damage. Once they clear the outer layers of the atmosphere Kos-mos let’s go of the elsa and takes to the open air again to finish off the last of the stragglers. She gets about halfway through them when something shows up on her scanner.

 

_What!? Where did they-_

 

She swiftly changes direction to avoid a shot from yet another fighter ship, this one seeming to come from somewhere on the planet. Her systems try desperately to rewrite a battle plan, and ends up too distracted to notice yet another ship moving to ram her.

 

She gets only a glimpse of it before her vision turns to static.

 

* * *

 

 

Shion want to scream as she watches Kos-mos get knocked unconscious by one of the ships, she wants to yell out for her as she watches her fall out of view and crash into one of the nearby cities. She want to scream so much but as much as she tries her voice fails her and only a small strained gasp can leave her mouth.

 

_I knew this wouldn’t end well…_

 

Her panic only rises as the elsa is hit, causing the ship to shake violently. Miyuki grabs her tightly, she thinks to try and steady herself, but Shion soon realizes that it’s herself that seems to be falling unsteady.

 

Miyuki seems to be saying something to her but she can’t hear, the room seems too loud, too hot, too bright, too dark.

 

_No… I can’t… Not now……._

 

Shion raises a hand to hear head which feels a few pounds too heavy. She worries for a second that she’s falling, but it seems to just be Miyuki lowering her down to the floor.

 

“Tha- Thanks Miyuki…” She says, looking up at her from her spot on her lap. “But what about-”

 

Miyuki gently places a hand on her forehead, “hey don’t worry, Kos-mos is stronger than to be taken out by just that.” She tries her best to be comforting and not let any fear into her voice. “Just relax for now, don’t try and get up until you’re feeling better.”

 

Shion nods slowly, although she starts to feel unconsciousness take her again as the ship shakes some more.

 

…

 

Shion opens her eyes again slowly realizing that she must have fainted. She’s no longer in the elsa, but instead tied up in the back of some sort of vehicle. Outside the opened back she can see her friends in a similar state, tied up and on their knees as some realian soldiers watch over them.

 

She wants to call out for them but then stops when she hears an unfamiliar voice speak to the realians. “-need her for something different. For now I need you all to keep an eye on these people.” The person’s voice is deep but still somewhat effeminate, and as she steps into view Shion can’t help but think it fits her appearance perfectly.

 

The woman is incredibly tall with broad shoulders and a harsh look on her face, but her attire is elegant and gothic in its appearance. She wears a long dark dress, the thick cloth covering all the way down to her ankles, the white collar and buttons stand out immensely along with a few pieces of pure silver jewelry. Her long dark hair is tied back in a loose ponytail, and her mismatched boots lead Shion to believe she’s also wearing something under the dress so that it’s a bit more suited for combat.

 

Shion glares at the woman as she turns her gaze to her, she half expects the woman to scorn or mock her, but her voice is surprisingly soft. “Please don’t struggle, I don’t want to hurt you.”

 

“Yeah right, like I’m going to believe you after you tie me and my friends up and hurt Kos-mos.”

 

Perhaps she just imagined it, but the woman’s face seems to contort into a snarl when she mentions Kos-mos. “Well not to worry, you’ll see her again soon enough.”

 

With that last ominous note she slams the back door shut.

 

* * *

 

_…_

 

_System damage at 18%._

 

_Self repair in progress._

 

_Restarting system._

 

Kos-mos’ eyes snap open and she looks around to recollect her bearings. She appears to have fallen into one of the old buildings and is now laying in a pile of moss and rubble, a small broken stone falls on the bridge of her nose as she looks up towards where she fell.

 

“Well that sure didn’t go well.”

 

Kos-mos nods in agreement, “I can’t argue with you on that. I did not judge that situation well.”

 

“Oh, that had to hurt to admit.”

 

“More than you will ever know.”

 

Once she’s done speaking with T-elos she gets up and experimentally stretches and bends her wings, making sure they’re in working order. Once she’s sure they’re working she turns them back on and flies back out the hole she fell through.

 

As she leaves Kos-mos is surprised to find there’s no fighter ships left. _I was not out of commission that long… I would like to hope that means the other’s finished them off, but…_

 

“Hey, don’t worry so much. We’re up and ready to fight now.”

 

Kos-mos nods again, a little surprised that T-elos would go out of her way to reassure her, but more focused on tracking down the elsa. She follows the path the elsa was going, constantly checking her scanners for sign of either the others or the enemy.

 

She notices a few scars in the environment, signs of a battle, but still no sign of the elsa. _They must have been trying to outrun them, this should not be a problem however, I imagine I will catch up to them soon enou-_

 

Kos-mos suddenly stops, shifting her wings so that she can hover mid air as something odd shows up on her scanners.

 

“Hey, what’s wrong? What are you stopping for?”

 

“I’ve detected Shion’s vitals heading that way.” She gestures her head toward a large mountain with an abandoned city built into the side of it.

 

“Is it just Shion?”

 

“There are others with her, however it is not anyone I have records of.” Kos-mos hovers in the air a moment, thinking about what to do in this situation. _Perhaps it would be a better idea to finish tracking down the elsa, to regroup with the others before I go looking for Shion… But…._

 

She glares at the mountain for a moment before finally making her decision. Her wings quickly take her toward Shion.

 

“You going after her?”

 

“The others are likely all together, and the elsa will be much easier to track down, where as if I lose track of-”

 

“Hah, don’t worry about it. You don’t have to explain yourself, I know you well enough to know you’d go after her.”

 

T-elos’ teasing is actually a comfort as she makes her way right towards what she has no doubt is a trap.


	14. Who is she

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very sorry there was such a drought of updates again, I was even looking forward to writing this part.. maybe one day I'll be able to consistently write

Miyuki angrily glares at the guards, though none of them so much as glance at her. They’re all sitting at a flimsy fold up table, considering the job already done, and they’re not exactly wrong either. No one is able to move aside from the light struggling against the rope that binds their wrists and ankles.

 

Miyuki sighs, her gaze turning to Ziggy, he was definitely the hardest to take down, but after a while even he was outnumbered. Miyuki had hoped they’d be dumb enough to tie him up with rope too, but the cyborg was bound up by a strong looking pair of electromagnetic cuffs.

 

_ I mean… It makes sense they’d use that but… Still, a girl can hope. _

 

The girl wracks her brain trying her hardest to think of some way they can escape and go after Shion, but the more she thinks the more the situation seems hopeless.

 

“Jr… I don’t think that’s working…” She glances over to see Jr beside Momo trying to chew off her ropes. Miyuki can’t judge his plan as she was actually the first one to try that, but Jr insisted that he try too saying that as a URTV he was  genetically modified to be stronger in all aspects.

 

Unfortunately though he still had to have somewhat human teeth, and at this point he was just making a mess of Momo’s ropes.

 

_ It’s too bad Kos-mos isn’t here, she could chew through those no problem. Sure the other vector workers may have laughed when I suggested sharp teeth, but I could always count on Shion to see the genius in my ideas. Hell, I bet she could even chew through those stupid electromagneti- EEK! _

 

Miyuki yelps as she feels something wet on her hands. The guards don’t pay her much mind aside from one that yells over his shoulder for her to ‘keep it down over there’ so she’s on her own with whatever it is she feels.

 

“Wha-”

 

Standing behind Miyuki is a small white chihuahua, she was so busy catching up with shion and Kos-mos she hadn’t realized that Jr decided to take Alby with him. Ether that or Alby somehow snuck on when no one was paying attention…

 

Doing her best to keep her voice down, Miyuki decides to take advantage of the situation. “Hey Alby, comere, do you wanna play?” The dog’s tail swishes from side to side as she holds her tied wrists in front of him, trying her best to stretch the rope apart as much as she can. “C’mon boy, you wanna play tug of war?”

 

Slowly the others start to notice her, Tony and Allen scooch next to her to try and prevent the guards from seeing Alby, and Jr stops chewing on Momo’s ropes so he can egg Alby on. “Go get her Alby, c’mon boy.”

 

Finally after enough encouragement Alby bites onto the ropes and starts tugging. Miyuki tugs back, hoping that he’ll be able to do enough damage for her to get the ropes off.

 

_ Hold on just a little longer Shion, we’ll come save you no matter what. _

 

* * *

 

 

The flight towards the mountainscape is more or less a quiet one, with only occasional light hearted bickering between Kos-mos and T-elos. Little over halfway there Kos-mos loses signal on Shion due to interference, but she marks where she was last recorded and continues that direction.

  
Kos-mos slows slightly and descends as she reaches the city, the roadway providing just a big enough gap between the abandoned skyscrapers for her to fly through. The air drops in temperature and snowflakes flutter about as she approaches the mountains.   
  


As she descends it very quickly becomes apparent to Kos-mos why she lost her signal on Shion as a large cave entrance becomes visible at the end of one of the backroads. The entrance seems to be man made, with steel sliding doors on either side that are stuck open by ice and snow, and a few broken terminals by the doors.

Kos-mos is quick to step in, a gust of cold air blowing past her as she enters and going deeper the light is quick to fade away. Luckily she has other ways of “seeing” what’s around her, but it’s not long before the only light is the dim red glow of Kos-mos’ eyes.

“How deep you think it goes?”

“It would be convenient if it were not very deep, however somehow I doubt that.”

T-elos hums in agreement, a short lull of silence falls between them before something interesting comes in sight.

A large vehicle is pulled over to the side of the cave, though it’s covered in mud and snow it looks significantly newer than anything else in the cave. Kos-mos glares, picking up a faint warmth emanating from the engine.

“It seems we are not far behind.”

Rushing down with newfound confidence she follows a large bunch of footprints. Not like she really needs them seeing as the cave is just a straight shot down.

The next thing of interest to come into sight comes in the form of a steel door, once again stuck open by overflowing snow and ice.

Stepping through Kos-mos is relieved as her scanners can once again pick up a much wider range. The open cavern beyond the door seems to be some sort of lab with various connecting rooms. A deep massive hole carves out the middle of the cavern, with multiple floors of pathways etched into the side and many massive icicles overtaking the lab.

“Alright smartass, where to next?”

Kos-mos leans over the railing, trying to get a good grasp of the entire cavern. “I am not entirely sure actually.”

“Oh good.”

Kos-mos could practically feel T-elos roll her eyes with that quip. Having nothing to add back and being more focused on finding Shion she simply darts off again, searching the lab.

The footprints lead her a few floors down before they fade as the snow clears up. Luckily Kos-mos doesn’t have to explore a ton of the lab as many of the doors are either frozen shut or simply lead to very cramped rooms.

As she goes through the lab it becomes clear the only path is to the bottom.

“Okay, now I’m sure of where she is.”

 

* * *

 

 

Shion shivers, she did not come dressed to be dragged down into some dark freezing cave, and being down on the cold concrete floor certainly didn’t help either.

The realians who had helped the woman carry her down had all scattered off somewhere deeper in the cave, and now it was only Shion and the other woman left in the room which appeared to be somewhat of an old storage facility.

“S- So, did you just d- drag me down here to watch me f- f- freeze to death?”

“I do not intend to watch you die today, and anyway I’m certain you’ll warm up once the excitement starts.” Once again that softness sneaks into the girl’s voice, “but if it takes too long I’ll be sure to get you something.”

“F- Fuck off.”

Shion don’t care how kind the girl tries to make herself sound. She is cold, tired, upset, and having none of this today.

The y’all woman simply frowns, “that was quite hurtful… Although I suppose I understand why you’re upset.”

Shion glares at her for a moment longer before turning her attention back to the open door. She hates how much she’s wishing for Kos-mos to come get her when she’s essentially the bait for this woman’s trap, but regardless that doesn’t stop her from wishing to be back in her love’s arms.

Her warm, soft,  **_warm_ ** arms.

God she’s cold.

Her wishes are soon answered, as Shion faintly hears the clacking of heels on the stone floor from down the hall. A torrent of thoughts swims through Shion’s head, but only one single word escapes her mouth.

_ “KOS-MOS!” _

For some reason the woman seems to lose her cool as Kos-mos comes into view. Certainly she intended for her to come here so Shion didn’t expect her to be so terrified. Being so unprepared Kos-mos is easily able to strike the woman before she can grab her weapon. A swift roundhouse kick to the midsection sends her backwards a few feet onto the floor and out of breath.

As quickly as she arrived Kos-mos is on the floor next to her, with one arm wrapped protectively around Shion and the other unhooking one of her blades from her belt to free her.

“Are you alright Shion? I apologize for not getting here sooner.”

“N- No, it’s okay, K- Kos-mos. I’m just so glad you’re here now.”

“Your body heat appears to be very low, perhaps I could try to heat myself up enough to warm you.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

As soon as Kos-mos finishes cutting Shion free a voice speaks up and interrupts her, though it’s not the one belonging to the other woman who is still catching her breath on the floor. This one belongs to someone quite familiar, wheeling out of the dark hallway.

“S- Sellers? H- How did you… W- Why here?”

While Kos-mos is quick to stand and get into combat position Shion finds herself a bit lost for words. She supposes it makes sense, he was the only of their old enemies to survive, but still, for him to come back to try and take more…

“It seems you’re a bit confused, but I’m afraid I have no time to explain. We’re a bit excited to see how our new toy works you see.”

“S- Sir, I’m sorry, I didn’t-“

“Oh don’t worry yourself Hemah, things still went well despite your slip up regarding the android.”

Kos-mos shifts her weight from side to side, a bit too hesitant to simply attack in such an uncertain situation but also not wanting to drop her guard. It seems, though, that Sellers makes the decision for her as he pulls out an odd looking gun.

“Now, put that irrational fear of yours aside and watch how easily this takes care of everything.”

Everything happens so fast as Shion tries to yell out and warn Kos-mos while she darts forward to attack, Sellers pulls the trigger, and just when it seems like it does nothing Kos-mos screams.

Shion had never heard Kos-mos scream in pain before, even to present day her expressions were never big or noticeable at all. But whatever Sellers had done to her sounds as though it hurt her to her very core. And as soon as her voice dies down Kos-mos limply falls to the floor.

For the second time today Shion feels as though she needs to scream but loses her voice all together.

She was so close, she was right there and things seemed as though they would be okay, but then…

“Ah, you see how well it works? I told you there was nothing to fear.”

Her sorrow quickly turns to anger as Shion glares toward Sellers, all she can think is how much she wants to make him hurt. Without thinking she pushes herself up and charges at Sellers, completely unarmed.

“You foolish girl,” Sellers chuckles, raising the weapon, “this is meant to nullify the essence of a god, you really think your weak presence can take a hit from-“

Shion comes to a halt as Sellers yelps in pain, the weapon goes flying out of his hand as he recoils, his hand burned by a shot from a blaster. Shion looks surprised as Kos-mos who’d already gotten up steps protectively in front of Shion, her back turned so she’s facing Sellers and Hemah.

“Kos-mos?”

She hadn’t expected Kos-mos to get back up so fast after being seemingly so hurt, and it seems neither did Sellers. As she moves to try and get a look at Kos-mos’ face she doesn’t quite look right either. Teal blue eyes burn with more hate and fury than she’d ever seen from her as she stares down the two in front of her, and then she speaks.

_ “I’m not Kos-mos.” _


End file.
